Bad News RE: Local Phone Service

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/technology/16rates.html?th

Big Bells Allowed to Charge Rivals More for Line Access
By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: December 16, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Telephone executives and industry analysts predicted a sharp rise in local phone rates over the next year after a bitterly divided Federal Communications Commission voted Wednesday to relax rules that had required the four large Bell telephone companies to give their rivals access to their networks at sharply discounted wholesale prices.

The decision, approved by the commission's three Republican members over the dissents of its two Democrats, was an important victory for the Bell companies, and another in a series of regulatory and legal setbacks for rivals like AT&T, MCI and a group of smaller competitors.

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Mr. Copps predicted that as a result of the decision many other companies would follow AT&T out of the residential phone business. "Down the road consumers will face less competition, higher rates and fewer service choices."

The Bell companies applauded the repeal of some of the price restrictions but said that the agency had not gone far enough in taking down other price restraints and vowed to take the matter back to a federal appeals court here that has continued to oversee the overhaul of the regulations.

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Well, so much for boycotting the Bell. They already had a virtual monopoly in my city, with the two or three competitors leasing the lines owned by Bell South and offering slightly lower rates. If anyone has ideas for how to handle this in the context of economic activism, I'd be interested in hearing them.