State Considers Rules To Help Phoneless Areas Thursday Hearing Will Discuss Pricing, Company Regulations

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission staff is considering new regulations that might make telephone service more affordable for scores of phoneless families in the Tonasket area and elsewhere around the state.

Commission staff members will ask at a public hearing here Thursday whether people want a price ceiling for extending phone lines into unserved areas. Also on the table will be the question of requiring all 23 phone companies in the state to use the same formula for calculating line-extension charges.

The hearing will be at 6:30 p.m. in the Okanogan Public Utility District auditorium at 1331 N. Second.

There are several phoneless enclaves in Okanogan County, including one in the Mount Hull area north of Tonasket that is the largest in the state. Residents of that area say US West has told them they would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get a phone line along their 12-mile section of Swanson Mill Road.

Residents have complained that the line would cost far less if they were in GTE’s neighboring territory instead of US West’s because of differences in the two companies’ state-approved fee structures.

The Utilities Commission has encouraged residents to negotiate a lower charge with US West, but staff member Bob Shirley said the talks haven’t been successful so far. So Shirley and other commission staffers may ask the commission to exercise its rule-making authority.

The idea was presented at a Dec. 15 hearing in Olympia, attended mainly by telephone company representatives. If the commission staff decides to proceed after Thursday’s hearing, a formal proposal will be introduced at a third hearing, probably in late February in the Everett area, Shirley said.

He speculated that a refined draft could be presented to the commission for action in March or April, and that final approval could come soon enough for line construction to begin this year on Swanson Mill Road.

US West spokeswoman Lynn Espinoza said the company favors creation of a “universal service fund” to equalize the cost of serving phoneless areas. All the companies would pay into the fund and pass the cost along to all their customers.

Meanwhile, she said US West is evaluating a survey of Swanson Mill Road residents that showed 40 to 50 households want phone service. She said the company mailed out about 300 survey forms and got only about one-third of them back, and some of those may be from residents of GTE’s territory.

Shirley said residents did their own door-to-door survey and found almost 150 households want telephones.

Comments on the possible statewide changes in the telephone regulations may be mailed to: WUTC Secretary, P.O. Box 47250, Olympia, WA 98504-7250. E-mail may be sent to: comments@wutc.wa.gov.