Dear Fellow Texans:

I am the executive director of Texans for Economic Progress and I am writing to you because competition in local telephone service is under assault in Texas.

Fair and robust competition is the foundation for business in America, and especially in Texas.

Just as important to us here in Texas is our word. It’s often said that “our word is our bond,” meaning that once we make a promise, we are duty and honor bound to come through on that promise.

To foster competition in telecommunications, the monopoly of “Ma Bell” was broken into separate businesses 20 years ago to provide alternatives for consumers in local and long distance service. Competition has flourished in the long distance market, but unfortunately virtual monopoly-control persisted in local service.

Over 8 years ago, SBC and the other large regional telephone companies agreed in a deal with Congress to open the public telephone lines to local telephone competitors in exchange for entry into the long distance market. The ink on that deal wasn’t even dry before SBC and its cronies unleashed their army of lawyers and lobbyists to every state and Congress. SBC sells a lot of customers its long distance service. But it works day in and day out to keep other competitors from selling local telephone service.

If allowed to do this “about face,” the SBC monopoly would once again control of all of our wire line phone service. What’s even worse is that if it is allowed to do this, SBC will be in a behemoth position to knock all competitive local carriers and all local Internet service providers off the system.

Traditional phone service remains a corner stone of our personal lives and professions. We depend on competition in this market to ensure lower prices and quality service. Competition is just beginning to take hold here in Texas, and we all stand to benefit. Allowing SBC to back out of its deal will put us back in the grip of a monopoly provider – one phone company that doesn’t have to answer to anyone, doesn’t have competition to keep its prices low, and doesn’t have to deliver quality service.

We at Texans for Economic Progress will continue to fight for competition in this area. I encourage you to visit www.texasprogress.org to sign-up to receive more information about how we can protect competition and maintain the quality and value Texans deserve. With your help, we can ensure that a deal is a deal, and that competition is good for Texas.

Sincerely,
Ted Heydinger