Coalition Opposes Wisconsin Telephone Deregulation

Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the story of opposition to Wisconsin's blanket deregulation of landline telephone service:

An unlikely coalition of small businesses, unions, consumer groups and mobile telephone companies is trying to put the brakes on a sweeping bill to drop many regulations on Wisconsin's traditional phone companies.

Under the bill that AT&T helped write and is now pushing, state regulators could no longer ensure that landline companies serve all families and businesses in their area and charge them reasonable rates.

"We want to make sure that when we start deregulating industries as critical as telecommunications, the impact of that has been fully examined," said Bill Smith, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business. "Typically, we support less regulation in the marketplace, but we also support fair competition."

We've discussed this at length here and here at Waxing America, here in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and here at Wisconsin Public TV. Hopefully, this bad bill gets stuck in the legislative logjam that always occurs at the end of the session.

- Barry Orton