[1st-mile-nm] Qwest promotion ignites regulatory battle

[Marianne Granoff]

Well, the "infrastructure-only" idea is an approach favored by some, but it is
not what we have today.

The reason that Qwest and other large LECs cannot offer the "promotions" they
wish, is that they have so much market power that they could easily 
under-price
all the CLECs "temporarily" until the CLECs had no customers at 
all.  Once Qwest
or the other large LEC was the monopoly again, they could raise prices.

Qwest is supposed to get approval for promotions.  They filed the 
proposed tariff,
Cybermesa said "no that's unfair", and the PRC will decide who is 
right in a docket.

The PRC acts as judge and both sides get to present their sides.  The PRC staff
also investigates and presents information based on what they have found.

That's the system we have today.  This is the regulatory process at 
work.  The media
may call it a regulatory battle, but it happens every day over and 
over on different
issues in all the regulated industries.

Marianne

At 03:53 PM 10/18/2008 -0600, John Osmon wrote:
>[...]
> > "We're losing customers every day, all day, because competitors are
> > under-pricing us," Armenta said. "We don't begrudge consumers making smart
> > decisions, but we're asking the PRC to let us make promotional offers like
> > our competitors."
>
>Hmmm...  Sounds like it is time for a regulatory change more than
>anything else.
>
>The mandate of the ILECs is to provide the infrastructure -- in the past
>that meant the both wire and voice service.  In the past, you couldn't
>really separate the two easily.  Now, the infrastructure (wire and fiber) is
>orthogonal to the service (voice).
>
>Why not let Qwest participate in the bounty that this creates?  IXCs
>used to carry traffic between LATAs.  Why not turn the ILECs into pure
>infratructure plays?  They sell *access* to the folks selling the
>services -- on a level playing field.
>
>Qwest (voice servcies) could sell at any price they wanted.  They'd be
>free to buy access to their customer via Qwest (regulated
>infrastructure), or any other infrastructure provider.  The state would
>get to regulate *where* services are available -- the market would
>provide all the services as demand dictated...
>
>
>
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