Let's see: Higher phone bills mean consumers win, right? Right
Once more into the breach, dear friends.
By HOWARD TROXLER
Published December 17, 2003
So, the phone companies won on Tuesday. Biiiiiig surprise.
They wrote their own law in the first place. Then they used raw power to ram that law through the Legislature.
On Tuesday, they completed the slam-dunk. They used that law to win massive rate increases for residential customers from the state Public Service Commission.
In the end, there was not much drama to it. The PSC vote was 5-to-zip.
Stick 'em up!
Don't waste too much time blaming the PSC. Blame it squarely on your friendly Florida Legislature. Rarely have so many millions been so brutally disregarded by their government in a single stroke.
The members of the Legislature were told how to vote on this law, and then they were told what to say. They received "talking points," and they were given gobbledygook form letters to send to citizens.
They were told to claim that if Verizon and Sprint and BellSouth are allowed to jack up local rates, the local phone market will become more "competitive" and that you, the residential customer, will benefit.
Be sure to get that part straight: You will "benefit" from paying more.
You will "benefit" even more because after these higher rates are phased in, the phone company will continue to be able to raise rates up to 20 PERCENT A YEAR.
You will "benefit" because under this law, the phone companies no longer even have to answer to any standards of customer service.
What the Florida Legislature has done, and what the PSC on Tuesday ratified, is the de facto repeal of any regulation on an industry that in the arena of residential service, remains an effective monopoly.
Oh, I know how my friends at Verizon (and they are my friends; I like those guys) will be hopping mad at that last statement! They will quote statistics on how much new business they are losing to competitors. They will say they truly want the local phone market to become competitive.
But what this really is, is the Last Great Train Robbery. This gives the telephone companies unchecked power over the final generations of Floridians who will choose to live under the old ways of doing things.
At the very heart of this long debacle has been the claim that we residential customers have been such a terrible burden on Verizon, BellSouth and every other company. It costs them sooooo much to serve us, and we pay so little. We are freeloaders. We are bums.
That's the gospel that was successfully sold in Tallahassee. Local customers are heavily "subsidized." But now, the phone companies will be able to make us pay what we cost. That'll learn us.
Except
Except, of course, that the numbers were always ridiculously concocted. Never mind that the phone companies make a zillion-percent profit off customers on call-waiting, caller ID and other such extra services.
Never mind how much of the phone companies' revenues exist in the first place because the companies have customers. How many ads would they sell in the Yellow Pages if they had no customers to read 'em?
So, you know what? Let's hope this law works. Let's hope local phone service does become competitive. Let's hope that all these rival companies that are supposed to pop up like mushrooms will steal Verizon's business. It would be a great irony if, a few years from now, the company were begging for customers.
But that's in the future. For the present, the Florida Legislature has given the phone companies total power over their customer base. It is a robber baron's dream.
Terry Deason, a veteran PSC member, gave a speech that fit the gravity of the occasion on Tuesday. He basically acknowledged this was the end of regulatory power over Florida's telephone companies, and expressed the hope - the hope - that competition would arise to hold down prices.
"To some extent," he admitted, "that relies on faith."
Faith!
Here is my faith. I have a great deal of faith in the idea that you should prepare to spend the next few years being milked like a cow. All together now: Mooooooo.
