Are Consumer Benefits Coming to Local Telephone Markets?
Now is the time to open the last monopoly market — we need choice for local telephone service. For example, average monthly local telephone rates (including minimum connection charges) for residences have increased 18 percent, on average, since 1984. During the post-divestiture era, the annual CPI for all local charges rose 13 out of 14 years. Local markets continue to be dominated by the incumbent local exchange carriers, which captured about 99 percent of all local service revenues in 1996. Since the passage of the Act, however, competitive local exchange companies (CLECs) have emerged as a discrete industry segment. CLECs now account for about 2.6 percent of all local telephone revenues. The top ten CLECs have switches in 132 cities in 33 states, nearly all of which have been installed since passage of the Act. CLECs tripled their customer lines in 1997 to about 1.5 million. Publicly-traded CLECs have raised $14 billion in capital since passage of the Act, and their total market ca
