When some of the biggest companies in the world start talking telecommunications policy in Missouri, the citizens of our state should grab their wallets. AT&T, Sprint and the big boys are at it again, trying to lower their costs of doing business. Their proposal would increase their shareholders’ wealth, while rural Missourians could see their monthly local phone bills increase substantially.
Missourians need to pay attention because state lawmakers are considering legislation that would endanger the ability of Fidelity Communications Co. and other Missouri Small Telephone Companies to provide affordable, high-quality telecommunications service in rural parts of our state. We are proud of the infrastructure and networks that we have built and maintained so that calls can be connected from central Missouri to anywhere in the world.
We’ve also invested in broadband to ensure that our children can research homework assignments online and that our families can have access to emerging services such as distance learning and telemedicine.
Networks in communities like ours are costly, because there are fewer customers living farther apart. This is important because all calls—whether they are made from a landline, cell phone or over the Internet—use traditional telephone lines at some point.
Access charges, the fees that one telephone company pays another to access its lines, are how we recover the costs associated with providing service. These charges currently are paid by long distance companies and wireless companies. They help to keep us in business in areas where the big boys refuse to provide service.
Legislation being considered in Missouri proposes to slash access charges without providing a cost recovery mechanism for small carriers that serve high-cost areas. Reform is a goal that we can support, but it should not come at undue and unfair expense to Missouri families while benefitting large corporate shareholders.
Access reform, without a cost recovery mechanism, would cost Fidelity and other rural carriers millions of dollars of lost revenue and force us to either increase customer rates or limit our future ability to provide high-quality telecommunications services.
We need your help to ensure that rates don’t dramatically increase. Call your state lawmakers today and tell them you oppose any change to access charges that does not include the creation of a fund to ensure continued investment in rural telecommunications infrastructure.
This approach is already working well at the federal level. Federal access charges have been set artificially low. They are supplemented by a “federal subscriber line charge” and a “Universal Service Fund Charge,” which together currently costs each Missouri customer over $6 per month. These funds support infrastructure in high-cost areas.
We can do the same in Missouri by coupling access charge reform with a cost recovery fund. A state-administered fund, similar to the one implemented at the federal level, would cost Missouri telephone customers no more than 30 cents per month because it would apply to all customers, including those with wireless service, and not just rural landline customers. We think this is a fair trade-off to Big Telecom’s proposal.
Letting your lawmakers hear from you is the only way to ensure that all Missourians have access to comparable service at comparable rates. That’s what is best for Missouri.
Dave Beier,
VP - Regulatory
Fidelity
Communications Co.
Sullivan, M