Us West Rate Plan Gets Conditional Support But Some Wonder If Company Can Make Good On High-Tech Promises

If US West Communications Inc. can provide Washington with state-of-the-art telecommunications, the company deserves a proposed $70.3 million rate increase, witnesses told regulators Tuesday.

But a few questioned the company’s ability to produce. And senior citizens said paying will be difficult, even if the rate hikes are necessary.

Fewer than a dozen witnesses appeared at a Utilities and Transportation Commission hearing to testify on a plan that would boost monthly residential rates $3 to $13.50 and business rates $2 to $27.

Theresa Jensen, US West’s director of regulatory affairs, said the additional revenues are needed for network upgrades if Washington is to get the services needed in an economy ever more dependent on telecommunications.

“Maintaining a high-tech network requires investment,” she said.

While acknowledging a rash of service problems in recent years, Jensen said the company responds to the vast majority of requests to move or install lines within a week.

That was news to Barry Watkins, program director of KAQQ. The station and several others under common ownership relay their signal from downtown to transmission towers in the Spokane Valley over US West phone lines, he said.

The stations have had a variety of service problems, Watkins said.

To demonstrate, he played a tape of “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters. The song’s sweet lyrics disappeared in an ominous hum that took KAQQ off the air for two days, he said.

The outage cost the station $676 in advertising revenues alone, Watkins said.

Chad Skidmore, director of network engineering for Northwest Nexus, said US West is the worst of the network providers his Internet company works with in the region.

He said he could accept a residential rate increase if he thought one would encourage an alternative phone company to enter the market.

But James Lynch, who works at the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute, said US West should get the increase to make sure communities like Spokane have the electronic infrastructure they need to avoid becoming “second-tier” economies.

Frank Yuse has opposed US West in earlier rate cases, but said he trusts the commission staff, which recommended a slight variation on the company’s proposal that would produce the same amount of income.

But he suggested the increases be rolled in over two years, with an audit to follow that assures the revenues are in fact being spent in Washington.

A method of providing some relief for low-income ratepayers aged 62 or older should also be found, Yuse said.

Nick Beamer, director for Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington, said phones are a lifeline for clients, many of whom live on pensions or Social Security that have barely increased.

A rate hike of almost 30 percent will place an undue burden on those individuals, he said.

US West monthly rates have not been as high as $13.50 since 1987, when the rate was $13.75 per month.

Since then, the rate has been cut three times to the current level of $10.50, the lowest in the nation.

The company filed for a much larger rate hike in 1995, but was rebuffed by the commission. That ruling is on appeal to the Washington Supreme Court, which is expected to rule within the next two months.

But Jensen said Tuesday the outcome of that case will have no effect on the proposals now before the commission.

Chairwoman Anne Levinson said the three-member panel will make its decision in January.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo