Competitors request antitrust investigation in Texas

Representatives of the CLEC community, including Comptel/Ascent and ALTS, have asked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to investigate possible antitrust violations stemming from a well-chronicled meeting in which RBOCs asked equipment vendors to contribute to lobbying efforts.

Similar requests have been made by Comptel/Ascent to the state attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts. It also contributed to a similar request from the CLEC industry to the judiciary committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. To date, none of the entities asked to take action have done so publicly.

USTA, which counts each of the RBOCs as members and organized the event in question, has dismissed the allegations as "baseless." However, the organization last week fired its new general counsel Russell Merbeth during his first day on the job upon discovering that Merbeth had signed the letter sent to the judiciary committees when he was counsel for CLEC Birch Telecom.