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Saturday, December 10, 2005

Ind. Gov't. - Phone company oversight to stay, rules IURC

"Phone company oversight to stay: State regulators act to level playing field" is the headline to this fairly long story by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener in today's Louisville Courier Journal. Some quotes:

[T]he Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission said in a unanimous 50-page order that competition in the state has not developed enough to entirely eliminate oversight of the companies and let the market take over.

Citizens Action Coalition utility director Dave Menzer said the ruling is a good one because it means the state will continue regulating former monopolies, including AT&T, the new name for SBC, which had been Ameritech and Indiana Bell before previous mergers.

In the past, those companies had assigned service territories, in which the state required them to serve every customer in exchange for a guaranteed profit.

But now the companies compete with others that want to provide the service and are not guaranteed a profit. So far that competition has not developed everywhere -- and may not without state oversight, Menzer said.

"We're pleased with this order because it appears the commission is interested in continuing to play a vital role as referee to keep those heavyweights from having an advantage over a flyweight competitor," he said. "From that standpoint, it's encouraging."

But the telephone companies are not so enthusiastic.

This is an excellent story that deserves to be read in full - it is not readily excerpted.

Another good thing about the story is that it caused me to check the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission's website, on the off-chance that the I could locate the "50-page order." Sure enough, here it is: In the matter of the IURC's investigation of matters related to competition in the telecommunications industry pursuant to IC 8-1-2.

Upon arrival at the IURC site, I was delighted to find that the IURC has a new Electronic Docket System and that access to documents is now free of charge. For years this was not the case, and the ILB, for one, did not even attempt to follow IURC goings on.

One gripe, as you may discover for yourself if you should attempt to access the 50-page order. It is a scanned document, and hence a very large file and slow to appear on your screen. The even-greater downside: One can't readily "grab" quotes from it to place in another document.

One wonders why this is so, particularly for a document just produced this week at the IURC -- why was it necessary to scan a paper copy rather than use the digitized version? (Incidentally, this also means that the document can't be read via a text-reader, as required by the ADA, and by many hand-held users.)

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 10, 2005 11:20 AM
Posted to Indiana Government