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You think your phone bill is hard to follow?
Try this.
Late last year, the major phone companies successfully argued for historically high phone rate hikes before the Public Service Commission. Then last week, the senior citizen advocacy group AARP asked the state Supreme Court to send the rate increase of 26 to 90 percent back to the PSC so the agency that regulates phone rates could reconsider its decision.
AARP attorney Mike Twomey said in court papers that market conditions have changed so dramatically since the PSC granted Verizon, BellSouth and Sprint the leeway to hike their rates on basic local phone service that the PSC needs a chance to change its mind.
At the time, Verizon, BellSouth and Sprint argued that higher rates would make it easier for more companies to enter the phone market as their competitors and thus, through natural market forces, ultimately lower the rates for consumers. The hikes were made possible by a controversial state law drafted by the phone companies and signed by Gov. Jeb Bush that greatly loosened state regulation of rates.
So, how has the market changed since last year?
Several months ago, a federal appeals court tossed out federal regulations that set a limit on how much established phone companies could charge their competitors for access to their vast network. Since then, AT&T, MCI and others have sharply reduced their marketing in residential phone service, saying it's no longer economical.
The net result is that enhanced competition for local phone services is now "highly improbable, if not impossible," Twomey argued in his brief to the state Supreme Court, adding that "the PSC should have the opportunity to reverse those rate increases in view of the significantly changed circumstances."
In a separate motion filed the same day, Attorney General Charlie Crist and public counsel Harold McLean urged the court to make public rate information the phone companies refused to reveal to the general public. "Those seeking to profit from this catastrophic rate hike would rather operate in the back room and deny the people access to the whole truth," Crist and McLean said in their motion.
A footnote: A day after Crist, McLean and Twomey filed their briefs, the Supreme Court kicked them back, pointing out that the attorneys had made procedural errors in filing them.
They were asked to refile.