AT&T Spearheading State-Level Deregulation

The nation’s largest service providers would like to see regulations governing local phone service relaxed – and as data compiled by the National Regulatory Research Institute illustrates, AT&T has been particularly active on this front.

Twenty-five states limited or eliminated public service commission oversight of local telecom service between 2006 and the first quarter of 2012, including 16 in states where AT&T is the dominant local carrier, one Verizon state, five CenturyLink states and three Fairpoint states, according to the NRRI. Another nine states, primarily AT&T states, have legislation pending, said Sherry Lichtenberg, principal of the NRRI, who presented the data on a webcast yesterday organized by broadband association USTelecom, whose members include large telcos. It’s not surprising that AT&T has been so active in pursuing telecom deregulation, as the company wants to phase out its traditional voice network but may be prevented from doing so in some states until the states are deregulated. Telecom deregulation has occurred in two separate waves. Initial legislation focused on getting rid of some elements of the carrier of last resort concept, which traditionally required telcos to make phone service available to anyone in their territories who wanted it. Some states also re-defined home phone service. More recently telecom legislation has had a different focus – and states that already passed bills are already looking at updates. The bills state, ‘Thou shalt not touch VoIP or IP-enabled services even if we haven’t defined them yet.’