November 19, 1999

COMMISSION PUZZLED OVER TELECOM REPORT WHICH FRIGHTENS CONSUMERS AND SUGGESTS COMMISSIONERS SHOULD NEGOTIATE MONEY FOR EDUCATION IN EXCHANGE FOR GIVING SOUTHWESTERN BELL A NEW FORM OF REGULATION

(OKLAHOMA CITY)—A report written on behalf of state senate leadership which is critical of allowing Southwestern Bell (SW Bell) to be placed under a new form of regulation without Bell providing hundreds of millions of dollars for the legislature to appropriate in Oklahoma has Oklahoma’s Corporation Commissioners (OCC) concerned and puzzled.

The report ignores the year-long series of telecom studies, meetings and hearings about local telephone regulation involving SW Bell, its potential competitors, consumer groups as well as the Commission, Attorney General, Governor’s office and Legislative leaders.

"Hiring out a report to frighten Oklahoma ratepayers with predictions of dire consequences from an alternative telecommunications package now under review is a disingenuous use of taxpayer money. We need to remember that these are the rates approved by the legislature when they amended the Oklahoma Constitution to remove our authority to conduct a rate review of Southwestern Bell," said Commission Chairman Bob Anthony.

The report wrongly states that the rule is contrary to logic and antitrust. The over twenty meetings and hearings included specifically in the record resulted in all competitors and consumers groups involved as well as the Commmission, AG and the Governor supporting the final rule.

The report is wrong in criticizing the rules elimination of old style regulation. The legislature made the decision to eliminate the OCC’s ability to examine rates and found existing rates in 1997 to be appropriate. The OCC moved forward to extend the cap passed by the legislature and to write incentives for competition and protection for consumers.

The report wrongly states that "the Oklahoma Plan promises to encourage competition by lessening the regulatory oversight." Commissioner Denise Bode said "the encouragement to competition comes from the well-balanced incentives to competitors to enter the market as they increase their market share."

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Investments in infrastructure which are characterized as increasing Bell’s competitive advantage over new entrants are the very items that so many citizens and business partners across the state testified they must have in order to keep their businesses alive and prosperous. Bode said "we must provide all citizens of the state, not just Tulsa and Oklahoma City, with the technology they so desperately need to compete in the next century."

Commissioner Ed Apple calls it "strange that the report would attack a company willing to make $220 million in upgrades…what’s wrong with that?" Apple also asks the question "why were all records and transcripts not reviewed by the person making the report."

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