New Mexico Alliance for Affordable Phones -- NMAAP -- Says Administration Sides with Phone Company Giants and Against New Mexico and American Consumers.

Business Editors

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 9, 2004

Carroll Cagle, executive director of NMAAP, issued the following statement today on the Bush administration decision to not appeal a wrong-headed ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on the 1996 Federal Telecommunications Act.

New Mexico businesses and consumers should worry, a lot, now that the ruling will go into effect, and prices will go up, probably immediately, and phone monopolies like Qwest will be riding high in the saddle.

Ever since the 1996 Federal Telecommunications Act was signed into law, with its promise of ending monopoly phone power and replacing it with consumer choice, the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) like Qwest have been fighting a rearguard action to keep the law from taking full effect.

They went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court -- twice -- in an attempt to gut or delay the law. They tried a third time, and won at the Circuit Court ruling. So the decision by the administration to not appeal once again to the Supreme Court means the RBOCs have finally won.

New Mexicans have seen very little benefits of competition, to this day, due to Qwest's torturous delays. Now that the White House had decided not to appeal the very bad D.C. Circuit Court ruling, New Mexicans will continue waiting indefinitely.

Where competition has taken hold, it has resulted in savings of $10 billion -- all around the country (but not in New Mexico). We need to get in on the savings, but now thanks to the administration's siding with the monopolies, we scarcely have a fighting chance.