Verizon has been pushing for deregulation along the eastern seaboard, claiming that the area is now competitive and they should be allowed to raise rates. The FCC denied these requests in the past but Verizon is now gaining some ground in Virginia. The State Corporation Commission agreed to modify a December decision on the telephone deregulation issue and agreed that there is more competition in the area than previously thought.

In addition to phone service competition, they agreed that certain VoIP service could be considered competitive to Verizon in the business sector. However, they have still denied Verizon’s request to extend this deregulation to residential services as they believe there remains limited competition in this area. They also denied Verizon’s request to consider cable companies that don’t provide phone services as competitive to them and further denied that wireless companies pose competition to Verizon’s landline service.