A study concluding that competitive telecommunications providers ...
A study concluding that competitive telecommunications providers serve small towns but not more isolated rural areas (CD July 16 p12) “raises far more questions than it answers,” a coalition of competitors operating in Texas told the Federal-State Joint Board…
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on Universal Service. The Texas USF Reform Coalition said the study, sponsored by four midsized carriers, should be “disregarded” until reviewed by Texas regulators considering a related universal service case in the state. The coalition of the Texas Cable & Telecommunications Association, Time Warner Telecom of Texas and Sprint Nextel said much material in the study is dubbed confidential, so outsiders cannot see it. The study is based on data from the four sponsors, but claims of industry harm - - from being unable to average costs across town and countryside -- do not jibe with the companies’ financial success, the coalition said. The study was sponsored by CenturyTel, Consolidated Communications, Embarq and Windstream. The coalition said it “is not suggesting that the Joint Board should attempt to reconcile the claims.” Instead, it should wait for the outcome of the Public Utility Commission of Texas’s “contested case” taking up the same questions: “In that forum, the critical tools of discovery and cross-examination will be available to look beyond the curtain of confidentiality that masks the methodology… used in the study.”