batageek
Slave To The Duopoly
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Re: No fiber builds
pnh102:
Never mind...In PA's case, you're right....
PA IS ruled by idiots..
See below
»www.pennlive.com/printer/printer···5001.xml
State House panel changes, OKs broadband bill
Friday, November 14, 2003
BY DAVID DeKOK
Of The Patriot-News
The state House Consumer Affairs Committee, by a lopsided vote yesterday, amended and then approved HB 30, the Chapter 30 reauthorization bill favored by Verizon Communications and the Pennsylvania Telephone Association.
It becomes the first of five Chapter 30 reauthorization bills to get out of committee.
Chapter 30 is the 1993 state law that requires the state's telephone companies, notably Verizon, to bring their networks up to modern standards and provide all state residents with access to broadband high-speed Internet service. The law expires on Dec. 31.
"It still needs to be improved," state Consumer Advocate Irwin Popowsky said of HB 30. "There is not enough protection for consumers or advancement of broadband deployment."
The House committee hearing was held in a small Senate hearing room in the upper reaches of the Capitol. Many late arrivals found no space inside and were forced to stand in the hallway outside and try to hear what was going on in the room.
An omnibus amendment introduced by Rep. William Adolph, R-Delaware, the committee chairman, and Rep. Joseph Preston, D-Allegheny, the minority chairman, was approved on a 21-4 vote. All other amendments, which were offered by Rep. Ron Buxton, D-Dauphin, and Rep. T.J. Rooney, D-Lehigh, were defeated on similar lopsided votes.
Buxton wanted a stronger Lifeline program of reduced telephone rates for the poor than the committee was willing to provide. He expressed exasperation at the large number of changes HB 30 would make to the original Chapter 30 law, which he helped to pass in 1993 and which he continues to believe is basically a good law.
Among provisions in the amended HB 30 are the following:
Removal of the inflation offset from rates for noncompetitive services is intact. Popowsky has estimated that this will be worth $2 billion to $3 billion over 13 years to Verizon alone.
This will enable telephone companies to raise residential and small-business rates, subject to some limitations. It is portrayed by the PTA as a fair payoff for improving their networks, although the original Chapter 30 provided billions of dollars in incentives for improvements.
Municipalities and school districts continue to be barred from offering their own broadband Internet or other telecommunications services in competition with a regulated telephone company. The amendment grandfathers Kutztown, the Glendale School District and any other public entities currently offering telecommunications services.
The state Public Utility Commission is banned from requiring local telephone companies to offer wider local calling boundaries, a perennial issue in the state's vast rural areas.
A provision in HB 30 allowing telephone companies wide latitude to escape their network modernization plans on file with the PUC is changed in the amendment to allow the PUC to approve changes to the plans "upon good cause shown." However, the PUC is banned from modifying the plans without the permission of the companies, a perennial Verizon complaint.
HB 30 requires broadband Internet roll-outs to continue, but allows smaller telephone companies to opt for a revised requirement enabling them to escape deployment to the last 20 percent of their customers unless the customers submit a "bonafide retail request," meaning they must persuade as many as 50 neighbors to sign up for the service for a year. The PTA believes many rural residents do not want broadband Internet.
DAVID DeKOK: 255-8173 or ddekok@patriot-news.com
Copyright 2003 PennLive.com. All Rights Reserved.
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