SBC withdraws Illinois wholesale rate relief petition

SBC Communications’ Ameritech subsidiary has withdrawn a petition filed last month with the Illinois Commerce Commission that sought to double the rates the incumbent can charge competitors to lease unbundled network elements. The action follows last month’s rejection of a similar petition by the Michigan Public Service Commission, which instead decided to launch a proceeding to study wholesale rates in that state.

SBC said it would re-file the Illinois petition in 3-4 weeks. The petition was withdrawn in order to make revisions that the carrier hopes will “streamline and more carefully focus” the filing in order to achieve rate relief “as quickly as possible,” said Ameritech-Illinois President Carrie Hightman.

Hightman said Ameritech would attempt to prioritize the rate elements so that the ICC doesn’t spend a lot of time analyzing less important elements. “What we realized was that the comprehensive filing that covered every UNE rate element was so large that it made it difficult for … the commission staff to really be able to do what we wanted in the timeframe that we were hoping for,” Hightman said.

Ameritech is working cooperatively with commission staff to identify the priority elements, but has yet to make any determinations, she added. However, Hightman said the loop is an obvious candidate, because “that rate hasn’t been looked at since the original TELRIC order.”

Hightman called the withdrawal a “procedural event” that in no way affects SBC’s position on the importance of a UNE price review and the need for wholesale price relief, which she said is supported by the carrier’s most recent cost studies.

“We don’t do results-oriented studies, we do cost studies based on TELRIC methodology,” she said. “And the information that we provided shows that our prices are seriously below cost. So, the way to get the prices to cost is to do a significant price increase.”

Hightman said she understood why the company came under so much criticism when it asked for the sizeable rate increase. “Our competitors are getting this at a subsidy and they want to keep that subsidy,” she said. “I guess you can’t blame them. If you can get a good deal at dirt-cheap [prices] you want to keep on getting it. But that doesn’t change the fact that our studies support the kind of increase we’re asking for.”