Verizon’s hold on Surf City loosened

Jenny Marder

The California Public Utilities Commission’s decision to break

Verizon’s seven-year hold on the Huntington Beach telephone market

last week, and set lower wholesale rates for competitors, will open

the door for other phone companies to enter the local market.

It may also lower phone bills for Surf City residents and add to

their choices for local phone service, some industry officials say.

Because it built the network infrastructure in Huntington Beach,

Verizon has had a monopoly on the market, charging competitors to use

its hardware.

Competitors have always been allowed to lease parts of the

network, but until last Thursday, the cost to use Verizon’s equipment

deterred competitors from entering the market.

“This will allow competitive phone companies to come in and offer

their services to Huntington Beach residents with rates lower than

what residents have been paying,” said Nikayla Nail, spokeswoman for

Caltel, an association made up of telephone companies competing with

Verizon and Southern Pacific Bell.

Verizon Pacific Region President Tim McCallion denied charges that

there has been a lack of competition, saying that there are competing

services aside from telephone service.

“The [California Public Utilities Commission] decision completely

ignores the unprecedented array of choices consumers have for

communications, cell phones, e-mail, broadband and the Internet,”

McCallion said.

Although Verizon officials say service will not change because of

the decision, other phone companies say the rates they will offer are

cheaper than anything Surf City residents have seen and predict that

this will lead to lowered rates across the board.

“Previous rates were so high, it didn’t make sense for competitive

phone companies to lease rates from Verizon.” Nail said, adding that

rates in Verizon territory are the highest in the state.

AT&T; is one of the companies that will mount an aggressive

marketing campaign in the coming year, with offers of low rates and

improved service, AT&T; spokesman Gordon Diamond said.

By the end of the year, AT&T; will be offering rates at least 20%

below what Verizon charges now for local service, Diamond said.

“We have plans to enter Verizon territory as quickly as we can,”

he said.

But before they can offer phone service, the company must undergo

complete systems testing to make sure that Surf City customers can

transition smoothly from one system to the other without any

glitches, such as a loss of dial tone or a systems crash.

“We’re relying on their systems to perform the switch,” Diamond

said. “It is absolutely critical that these systems work flawlessly.”

Verizon has no plans to change pricing either in the short or long

term for its customers, spokesman Jon Davies said. It has, however,

begun offering new service packages that will help to keep it

competitive.

The phone company launched a new service package last month that

offers extra local and long distance minutes, caller ID, voice mail

and call waiting at a discount price, Davies said, adding that

package options will soon expand to include DSL and wireless Internet

services.

“We’re concentrating on offering more value,” he said.