Plan to increase rural phone rates met with protests

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Jul 18, 2002 | by Cahalan, Steve

At a public hearing Wednesday afternoon, three area residents asked the Wisconsin Public Service Commission to reject CenturyTel's proposed rate increases for local residential telephone service for customers in many area communities, such as Holmen and Prairie du Chien.

But CenturyTel officials said the proposed increases are justified and would be the first for the affected communities since January 1995. The rate proposal does not involve CenturyTel customers in La Crosse, Onalaska or West Salem.

CenturyTel acquired about 133,000 telephone access lines in the 77 affected Wisconsin communities from Verizon (formerly GTE) in October 2000.

A PSC administrative law judge held afternoon and evening public hearings on the proposal by video conference Tuesday in Madison, Menomonie and Green Bay, and on Wednesday in LaCrosse, Platteville and Madison.

"I am against the increase," Deborah Jodis of Holmen said at the hearing Wednesday afternoon, at a video conference site at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Wing Technology Center.

"I understand that you do have expenses like every other corporation and business," Jodis said. "I too, as a housewife have expenses. I think that if you review your budget, you might be able to make some cuts here and there, instead of passing these rates on to your customer."

Cathy Wade of Mindoro said it is "kind of outrageous" that her monthly phone bill totals about $100. "To me, it just seems like the way that this system is run is incredibly unfair to rural residents," she said. "Granted, I understand it's more expensive to run there. But we ought to be able to have equivalent phone costs as somebody who lives in town. And we don't."

"The most difficult thing about local service is that I don't have any choice," said Betty Wolcott of Osseo. She added, "I choose my longdistance carrier, and I'm happy with it," but CenturyTel is the only local service provider in her area.

For several years, other telephone companies have been free to go into competition against existing local service providers, said Bob Brown, general manager of CenturyTel's La Crosse market. But other companies have not done so in small communities such as Mindoro because of the capital investment that would be required and the higher per-capita cost of providing service there, he said.

CenturyTel officials said Monday the company is proposing local residential phone service rate increases-but not business rate increases -for the former GTE communities because GTE had been subsidizing residential rates with business rates, and had been subsidizing rates for more rural areas with rates for more populous areas. CenturyTel is trying to bring its rates in line with actual costs of providing service, they said.

CenturyTel officials also said GTE did little investing in infrastructure in the affected rural areas, and that CenturyTel has been investing and bringing new services such as voice mail and caller ID to them.

Since acquiring the territory in October 2000, Brown said Wednesday, CenturyTel spent nearly $15.3 million on infrastructure improvements in it in 2000, nearly $31.2 million in 2001 and expects to spend nearly $34.8 million in 2002.

New rates could take effect in mid-September, if they are approved by the PSC in August.