Panel hears phone debate

ATLANTA - Lew Strickland has had the same phone number for 40 years, but even he knows the day might come for him to cut the cord.

"Sometime this is going to happen," he said. "I don't feel like I've got to have a landline."

Mr. Strickland, a 72-year-old Savannah resident, has a cell phone along with his phone line at home and has looked into a new technology for placing calls over the Internet to see whether it could cut down on his monthly bills.

He's not alone.

Today, there are more cell phone subscribers in Georgia than traditional phone line users, and ways to place calls continue to grow.

"When I saw that this Voice over the Internet didn't have any government taxes or didn't have all of the regulation and everything that we associate with traditional phones, I decided that this would be alternative to look into," Mr. Strickland said. "But this never has worked out thus far for me."

One reason why Mr. Strickland says he hasn't made the switch to Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, service is because he could be required to keep his phone line from BellSouth to get the company's high-speed Internet access so he could operate a computer-based phone.

Earlier this year, state regulators tried to block that requirement by making BellSouth offer high-speed DSL on its own - a decision that was overturned by the Federal Communications Commission.

On Wednesday, a Senate subcommittee heard experts discuss how far the state's regulatory power should be in the areas of VoIP, broadband and cell phone providers.

The Georgia Public Service Commission does not regulate those areas, but BellSouth officials argued that the board's attempt to intervene on the company's DSL offering was a move to try and regulate the broadband market. Six of the nine states in BellSouth's region have passed legislation to define similar limits.

A study committee that includes industry representatives and service commission members will meet in the coming months and discuss a bill for next year's legislative session.

Public Service Commissioner Bobby Baker, who will sit on the study committee, said he does not want to see the bill's language define broadband so widely that it limits the board's ability to regulate traditional phone service.

"Competition is working. The marketplace is responding to the regulatory environment," he said. "Why change something that's working exceptionally well?

"We're going to participate in the study committee and see what issues come up."

One issue Commission Chairwoman Angela Speir said should be considered is the need to protect consumers who are using the emerging forms of technology.

She said the service commission is the only place most customers can turn to when they have disputes with the telecommunications industry. She said the agency has seen complaints about the sector increase from about 4,900 in 2002 to nearly 5,400 in 2004.

While the state does not directly regulate cell phone or broadband providers, the service commission has worked with providers to informally resolve disputes.

She said the FCC has made it clear that states should continue to play a role in responding to consumers even as the federal agency reconsiders its own rules about the new technologies.

"If the state does not continue to effectively address the consumer protection issues," Ms. Speir said, "it is unlikely that anyone will."

Reach Vicky Eckenrode at (404) 589-8424 or vicky.eckenrode@morris.com.