"How much do we think we should spend on this?" asks Reif. "It's a very thorny problem, and it all comes down to dollars."
US West's strategy to help push through Taylor's bill will revolve around a pitch to rural legislators. In the other states where similar bills have been introduced, the company promised to spend $40 million per year to improve rural telecom service. The company will make the argument that it is the only telephone company with a commitment to serving rural areas.
US West's Beigie says rural Colorado is in "horrible danger" of losing out in the new world of telecommunications.
"Right now our competitors can ignore these customers," he says. "All the competitive focus is put on those with the most money. Durango would like to be able to compete for services, but these companies just focus on downtown Denver and the Tech Center. They just go after the best of the best customers. It's a very clever strategy on their part."
In the meantime, however, US West has been discarding some of these same rural customers. The company recently announced that it intends to sell off 500,000 rural telephone lines in ten states. Cities the phone company plans to abandon in Colorado include Alamosa, Crested Butte, Fairplay, Gunnison, Leadville and Salida. US West says it will use the cash from those sales to invest in areas where it's being challenged by competitors.
"It makes you question their sincerity," the OCC's Reif says. "Generally, the only reason they're serving rural areas is because they have to. They've deployed their advanced services in urban areas first."
Promising similar services to rural legislators is one way to win votes on the deregulation proposal. "They really play on the emotions of rural legislators and whip them up into a frenzy," says Feeley. "They're trying to steamroll it. They'll use every emotional argument they can muster to make people think the world will end if US West doesn't provide them with phone service."
While Front Range lawmakers dominate the General Assembly, rural legislators still control a significant block of seats--thirteen in the House and seven in the Senate. Now Colorado's elected officials will have to decide if they really want the marketplace competition they support in theory.
"We expect it to be a war," says COPIRG's Malick. "I'm terrified that we're about to deregulate a monopoly when we don't have local competition. This is like the Titanic, a sinking ship for consumers."
A few weeks ago, Malick himself found out just how overboard US West has gone. When Colorado's in-state long-distance market was opened to competition on February 8, Malick tried to switch his in-state carrier. A US West sales agent told him that a "freeze" had been placed on his account, and he couldn't choose another company for that service without getting the freeze lifted.
Like thousands of other people, Malick had asked US West to freeze his out-of-state long-distance service so he wouldn't fall victim to "slamming," the practice of some long-distance companies that switch customers' accounts without permission. But Malick, a veteran consumer activist who frequently lobbies the state legislature on telecom issues, was startled to discover that US West had unilaterally extended that freeze to include his in-state long-distance as well.
He had to haggle with US West to get the freeze lifted.
"For me, it was a big hassle," says Malick. "If I didn't know how this industry works, I would have hung up and forgot about it. But if they make it hard for people to switch, it can be big money for them."
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