AT&T, Others Blast Verizon Rates for Local Phone Lines in Pennsylvania.

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, June, 2002

By Patricia Sabatini, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jun. 13--Long-distance telephone giant AT&T and a host of smaller phone companies yesterday blasted Verizon Communications' latest proposed rate increases for leasing its statewide telephone network and urged the state Public Utility Commission to reject them.

"Verizon's existing wholesale prices are crushing local phone competition in Pennsylvania," Jim Ginty, president of AT&T of Pennsylvania, said. Even before the proposed boosts, Verizon's rates were the biggest barrier to AT&T's entry into the state's residential phone market, he said.

The amount that Verizon, the state's largest local phone service provider, charges its competitors to use its network...