Phone Plan Would Aid Rural Areas Locke’S Proposal Would Speed Delivery Of Internet Access

Gov. Gary Locke, completing his wish list for the 2000 legislative session, outlined a package of bills on Thursday to give rural areas greater access to affordable telecommunications services, from telephones that work to high-speed Internet access.

His five-part “One Washington” package includes new authority for public utility districts and rural port districts to become wholesalers of telecommunications services.

It also outlines new steps toward deregulation, wider Internet access for the public and affordable phone service.

Locke said the legislation would help spread the prosperity of the state’s urban areas to less-populated regions that have inadequate telecommunications service. Start-up “dot-com” businesses and other companies would relocate in rural areas willingly if those places had reliable and affordable telecommunications, the governor said.

Locke said he’s pursuing a policy in which citizens won’t be divided “urban and rural, east and west or rich and poor.”

“Yet, in many communities, advanced telecommunications services are coming far too slowly, and in some parts of our state, they are not available at all,” he told a news conference. “We need to speed telecommunications investment in this state so that all citizens have access to the services they need to prosper in an Information Age economy.”

Early reaction was uniformly favorable, although Senate Energy Chairwoman Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, cautioned that many of the details haven’t been worked out.

Brown said she will hold the first committee hearings on the bills Thursday.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission embraced the governor’s bills, as did US West, the state’s biggest local carrier. The American Electronics Association, Microsoft and several e-commerce startup companies also endorsed them.

“This is great,” said Randy Altig, chief executive officer of Redmond-based Buyunion.com, an e-commerce company for union households that will go online March 1. “We plan to grow quickly, and we could easily outsource our call centers to rural areas” if good telecommunications service is available.

US West spokeswoman Dana Smith said the company, which has sought changes in telephone regulation for years, could find no fault with the plan.

In particular, the company liked the governor’s proposal to modify the rate-of-return standard used to set rates. The company has long argued that method discouraged new investment in Washington.

Locke would also overhaul the state’s “universal service” program for averaging telephone rates so that low-cost rates for the urban areas subsidize the higher-cost service in more remote areas. Brown said debate over that measure will likely be the most contentious.

But, she noted, the biggest issue in that debate has been resolved. Most parties agree that the pool needed to assure equality of services will be about $110 million.

The biggest remaining hurdle may be reaching agreement among all players, including cellular phone companies, to pay into the fund.

The governor’s plan also would:

Streamline city and county regulations and permits for installing infrastructure, such as cellular towers.

Authorize the state to at least partially deregulate local phone companies through use of negotiated deals.

Hook up all 68 library districts in the state to the high-speed K-20 Internet network at a cost of $2 million, giving library patrons access to the Internet.