Maine consumers deserve choice of local phone providers

Consumer choice is a powerful thing. Ever think about why supermarkets advertise milk, bread and other staples at very low prices? Or why auto dealers provide easy financing or low monthly lease rates? Or why you aren’t relegated to a black rotary dial phone in your home or office? The answer is clear: because the consumer has a choice in the marketplace and can decide between a number of competing products. The great deals are simply a way to win the consumer’s business. And consumers are better off as a result.

Maybe that is one of the reasons that local telephone competition has taken off so dramatically recently in states where consumers truly do have a choice. During the past year or so, due to consumer-friendly decisions made by a number of state utility regulatory commissions around the country, more than 10 million residential phone customers and small businesses have chosen to obtain their local phone service from a company other than the incumbent local phone monopoly. These 10 million customers have made the switch for very simple reasons: better service, lower prices and more service options that meet their individual needs.

The good news is that more and more people are now in a position to make the switch because they now have a choice of local phone suppliers. Among the fortunate ones in this part of the country are the residents of New York and New Jersey, where regulatory officials have set policies in place that encourage competition and consumer choice. Massachusetts and Maryland will soon join that list.

In Maine however, Verizon is still clinging to the days of the black rotary dial phone, as it resists opening its local phone monopoly to consumer choice. Existing law provides that the Maine Public Utilities Commission can set rates for use of the Verizon network at prices that are high enough for Verizon to earn a return on its investment plus a reasonable profit, but are low enough for the new phone companies to similarly profitably serve local phone customers with their own offerings. And that is exactly what regulators in New York and New Jersey did. For the sake of consumers, officials here in Maine should do the same.

Consumers understand that competition is good for them. It will lower rates, improve service and increase new product offerings. You only have to look at the latest supermarket ads and the phones in your house to confirm this. Verizon wants to cling to its monopoly on local phone service and the days of the black rotary dial phone, but consumers know better. They can think for themselves, and they want the same choice in local phone service that they have for every other consumer product and service. Maine regulators should give them that choice.

Robert K. Johnson is executive director of Consumers’ Voice, a public advocacy organization based in Indianapolis, Ind.