MICH. COMPETITOR, CONSUMER INTERESTS CAUTION CONGRESS AGAINST HASTY POLICY CHANGES
Competitor and consumer interests in Mich. cautioned leaders of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee against rewriting telecom policy based on today’s temporary conditions in the telecom marketplace. They were speaking at a telecom policy roundtable at Wayne State U. near Detroit attended by Reps. Conyers (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on Judiciary; Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), Judiciary Committee chmn., and other members of the panel.
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NARUC Pres. David Svanda of the Mich. PSC said competition in Mich. was developing, thanks to federal and state laws, and that progress “shouldn’t be sacrificed because of cyclical changes in the marketplace.” He said 70% of Mich. customers being served by competitors were being served via UNE-P, and the PSC needed the flexibility to act independently to evaluate the need for UNE-P as competition continued to develop.
James Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute, which hosted the Detroit forum, said: “Competition is working. Don’t kill it.” He said if SBC’s claims that UNE-P was grossly underpriced were true, Verizon or another incumbent would have rushed in to take advantage of the bargain and grab SBC’s customers. He said Bell local rates in Mich. rose 40% in 1991-2001 period, but dropped as much as 30% within 4 months after competitors entered Mich. via UNE- P. Fred Anderson, AT&T’s Mich. govt. affairs vp, said Congress should leave the present legal structure alone, “unless you intervene to make clear that anticompetitive actions aren’t immune to antitrust scrutiny” just because they're Telecom Act violations. “We need antitrust enforcement or structural separation” of the Bells’ wholesale and retail operations, he said. Vickie Norris, CenturyTel govt. affairs dir., said small rural carriers such as hers needed a stable legal and regulatory environment in order to concentrate on investment and growth. She said “too many universal service and competition issues remain open, and it will be difficult for us to plan infrastructure investment if this keep on.”
Peter Healy, regulatory affairs dir. for TDS Telecom, said his company was in a unique position because it was simultaneously a wireless competitor, landline CLEC and incumbent telco. He said local competition in Mich. was succeeding despite, not because of, SBC’s efforts and that pattern was consistent across the country: “What would CLEC market shares have been without the RBOCs’ anticompetitive behaviors? CLECs’ success in overcoming obstacles doesn’t prove the obstacles don’t exist.” He said the RBOCs technically might not be guilty of the massacre of scores of CLECs in past months, “but that’s no defense against a charge of attempted murder.”
Shannon Kirkland of the CWA and Dan Lane, Mich. business agent of the IBEW, said UNE-P competition had been hurting union workers in the telecom industry because the jobs being lost as incumbents laid off workers weren’t being made up by new CLEC hiring. They said facilities-based competition, not UNE-P, was what would create new telecom jobs. Barry Cargill, govt. affairs vp of the Mich. Small Business Assn., said most local competition in Mich. was based on UNE-P. He said public policy must retain UNE-P at reasonable rates until competition by other paths was sustainable. “Take away UNE-P now and competitors’ market share will drop from over 20% to under 7% overnight,” Cargill said. Harvey Hollins, AARP Mich. govt. affairs dir., said federal and Mich. subscriber line charges were an impediment to competitive pricing, were built on obsolete economic assumptions and should be eliminated.