Colorado PUC granted expanded power

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will gain the power to limit local, basic phone rates in the state under a bill that passed the Colorado legislature this week. The legislation reauthorizing all the powers of the PUC removes a state law capping base phone rates and instead puts rate limits in the regulatory body's duties. It represents part of what Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc. and other local phone carriers in the state wanted, which was relief from the existing rate-capping system set in 1995 that ties rates to a formula based on a federal "telecommunications productivity index." The formula kept Qwest's base charge at $14.88 a month, which is what the company charged in 1991. The company won Senate support last month for dropping the productivity index from the formula and instead peg rate caps to changes in the gross domestic product, which could have meant a 32 percent jump in rates as soon as next year had the legislation made it into law.
http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/05/05/daily26.html