Update: Passed the House Public Utilities Committee 6-4.
AT&T is pushing a bill that will remove most of AT&T's services from state regulation. HB# 825 terminates the Public Service Commission's authority to supervise AT&T or treat it as a public utility. Have a complaint about AT&T? Call the federal government just as you do for the post office. Service problem? Call AT&T and experience the On The Road Tour, without Bob and Bing. Manila, Bombay, Bollywood even and the best part is, you don't have to leave home but get to do it on your phone with just one call, all presented by AT&T customer service and the Mississippi Legislature. Virtual schools & virtual travel - the AT&T and the Leg got this one.
Meanwhile, AT&T deployed their crack team of capital commandos to make sure the bill becomes law. AT&T spends over $440,000 a year on lobbyists, the best ones in the state, bar none. Their mean, they're connected, and although far from being lean, they get the job done. Their mission is to remove regulation of AT&T landlines so AT&T can raise rates without going through the Public Service Commission.
AT&T requested a rate increase in 2008 from the Public Service Commission. Not much data was provided to the PSC, AT&T just said "we want it and because we are AT&T, we should have it." The PSC rejected the proposed rate increase and the Mississippi Supreme Court backed them up in a unanimous decision. Well, AT&T didn't take its ball and go home but spent more money on lobbyists and went to conferences in locales such as Scottsdale so it could buy the food, the golf rounds, and the other little perks dear to a legislator's heart.
AT&T plays this game in other states over and over and over. California, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Ohio, Kansas.... like Sherman's march to the sea AT&T spreads the wealth, gins up the lobbying machine, and gets its deregulation bills passed by legislatures across the country. AT&T throws out the usual arguments: "Let the market decide." "We are regulated, our competitors are not." "Technology has passed the law". "We need a level playing field."
The result has been almost universal: AT&T raises the rates on its landline telephone service after deregulation takes place. Then after a while, the rate increases take place. This is one conservative who usually favors deregulation. Deregulation was good for the oil industry in the early 1980's. Deregulation was good for consumers overall after the AT&T decision. However, AT&T and other landline providers usually enjoy a monopoly in providing landline service. Only one company builds the system and maintains it. Sure, other companies offer it but they usually pay AT&T for the access to the equipment. While it is true AT&T's competitors are not regulated, it must be pointed out they do not enjoy profits generated by a monopoly either.
However, Ma Bell wants to have its cake and eat it too: The right to enjoy a monopoly AND the right to charge any price at any time. AT&T is required by law to provide telephone service to rural areas in Mississippi and even received a nice subsidy(over $260 million last year) to do so. In other states, AT&T has said it wanted to move such customers over to wireless if possible while pushing similar legislation. AT&T claims it has 30,000 rural landlines in Mississippi and its a safe bet these aren't as profitable as other phone service is for Ma Bell. If the HB# 888 passes, customers receiving such service can expect to pay for more expensive cellphone plans or higher rates for basic telephone service. I haven't even mentioned the comparison between cellphone service and landline services in rural areas.
Then there is the matter of E911 funds raised on this website last Sunday. Landline taxes pay for the funding of radio equipment for police and fire protection. If AT&T severs the landlines for rural customers or converts them to cellular, that is less revenue for their radios, 911 dispatch consoles, 911 computers, and similar equipment that is funded solely by landline taxes. Most counties (Unlike Hinds) have not treated their E911 money as a credit card but used them to support their police and fire departments - basic services everyone needs. It is no secret landline tax revenue is decreasing as more people use cellphones. This bill will accelerate the its decline while replacing it with nothing. Its clear no one has thought about the implications of this effect as no solutions are offered.
As stated earlier, AT&T wants the best of both worlds: monopoly power and unregulated pricing. Mississippi is still a poor and rural state. Thus for many residents the only telephone service available is through a regular phone line despite the claims of AT&T. The legislature needs to table this bill. AT&T and Mississippi are not going anywhere. The legislature should slow down, hold some hearings, give those interested in this issue a chance to make their concerns known, and then write a good bill- if one is needed. "Just because AT&T said so" is not a good reason for passing HB# 825.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Editorial: AT&T bill is too much too fast
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11 comments:
This makes me want to change my phone service.
Called my Rep to urge a no on this one.
Props to the PSC -- they've been helpful when I had questions in the past.
How is it that our media outlets aren't really covering this? Seems like it's kind of a big deal...
I am humored by the editorial label. Everything you post on your site is an editorial commentary.
AT&T has an unsightly orange cord ( like an outdoor extension cord ) running between their boxes on the curb in front of my house and driveways.
One day I came home and it was just THERE. No one knows why.
Maybe my house isn't the only one needing a line buried in town!
Our PSC is awful.
First, they forgot entirely that one of the conditions for having MS customers foot the bill for Grand Gulf was for US to benefit with "at cost" rates once the plant was paid for BY US. They'd sell their excess power to others to make their profit.
It was explained to me that " agreement" with MP&L wasn't part of the agreement with Entergy so too bad we bought them a nuclear plant and get nothing in return! So much for looking after the taxpayer who pays their salaries!
They've rarely met a rate request they didn't approve.
So, they help you solve minor individual problems and tell you how to read your meter...whoopee!
KF, this is the most incorrect bs you have published in a while - obviously your green eyeshades have kept your eyes from being open to fact. Instead, you are being just like your brethern at Cottenchicken and JFP - forget about facts, just write what you want to.
I dont even know where to start to correct your series of misstatements you have made so many. So instead I'll just ask some simple questions and see if you want to address them.
1) who says AT&T has a monopoly? That was true decades ago when they did have a monopoly because all communications went across landlines and they owned them. Thus, the regulation. Now, most communications does not go thru landlines and what does is not limited to AT&T.
2) in today's environment, who says that someone can't go into direct competition with AT&T?
3) in order to get long distance service today, do I have to use AT&T like I did when it was a monopoly? If not, what does the market allow in the way of charges for the service? If AT&T is unregulated and therefore can charge 'whatever it wants' as you say they will do, why would someone stay with them rather than go to their (unregulated) competition?
4) while it is true that AT&T is a supporter of ALEC and therefore foots the bill for ALEC conferences -as Cottenmouth has been loath to say loudly lately, and now you want to join in with your brethern from the left - does that make them any different than many other interest groups, professional groups, (liberal and conservative)? Or does it just make good fodder for your diatribe here? Have you researched all the other groups that fete legislators around the country? What about those that take the PSC out for dinner and similar outings or conferences. No, it appears that you have just copied Cottenchicken's work here.
5) Have you ever achieved any level of satisfaction from calling PSC and complaining about AT&T service issues or charges? All I've ever gotten was their sympathy but no change in the service or the cost.
For the record, I am not one of those 'highly paid lobbyists' you want to rant about here. But I do follow the process, and I don't see any reason to continue regulating a company that is no longer a monopoly but that has tons of competitors in the marketplace.
Everything you post on your site is an editorial commentary.
Wow. Such a heady comment. Do you have your own blog so that we can bask in more of your greatness?
Very simple.
If AT&T raises my land-line rate, I drop AT&T.
I've only kept their land-line service as an emergency back-up in the event another
Katrina wipes out the towers.
I might drop AT&T anyway. I dropped their cell service years ago.
Below average service all around.
7:20 PM Your assessment is spot on. Except for the fact they couldn't run a blog. They are senior executives who are in the game at this point to save their own ass and hope to gawd that some young, lower paid, more aggressive, internet savvy lower rung mid-management MBA doesn't realize it is them making stoopid comments on a blog. B/C if they ever found out, there is always a higher up in Dallas who would love to know what big shot decided to spew stoopidity about a blog comment that "made them look bad."
Get a life AT&T. You suck. You are a monopoly. You don't get to compete on a level playing ground when you own the ground.
If I were one of the lobbyists, I would seriously try to keep your effeminate executives away from the internet and especially blogs.
I dropped ATT at home, cell, and office. My bills are lower. Furthermore I don't have to spend time unwinding the promises (re: lies) told to me by ATT authorized third party vendors who promise wondrous things that ATT refuses to honor once they get a signature on a contract.
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