On behalf of all of Pennsylvania’s incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), we respectfully ask you to consider reporting Senate Bill 341 out of the Senate Communications & Technology Committee as soon as possible.
This legislation modernizes the telecommunications sections of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Code and removes some of the decades-old, monopoly-era regulations which are irrelevant and unnecessary in today’s environment.
All the state’s ILECs are offering voice and broadband services in a highly competitive
telecommunications market while being in the only class of providers fully regulated by the
Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). These companies provide a mere fraction of the voice subscriptions they did when most of these regulations were implemented and the cost to comply with them diverts valuable resources away from critical investments such as broadband deployment.
At the same time, SB 341 protects Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable citizens by protecting low-income programs such as Lifeline, establishes a more customer-friendly process to resolve complaints, and retains PUC oversight with regard to ILEC provision of adequate, efficient, safe, and reasonable service.
We look forward to working with you, Senate Communications & Technology Committee
members, and all Senators on modernizing our Public Utility Code and urge you to call any of the undersigned with questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Steven J. Samara, Pennsylvania Telephone Association
Brett Biggica, Lumen/CenturyLink
Jeanne S. Shearer, Windstream Pennsylvania
Bruce Mottern, TDS Telecom
Steven D. Tourje, NEP Telephone
Carl Yastremski, Frontier Communications
