Phone Companies Want Option To End Basic Service

• {Frankfort, Kentucky}...Kentucky's telephone industry wants the option to end basic phone service in less profitable parts of their territories if other communications options, such as cell phones or the Internet, are available in the area. The industry is pushing Senate Bill 135, referred to as "the AT&T bill" by its sponsor and others because it originated with that company's lobbyists. The bill would strip the Kentucky Public Service Commission of most of its remaining oversight of basic phone service provided by the three major carriers AT&T, Windstream and Cincinnati Bell, such as the power to initiate investigations into service problems. AT&T spokesman Brad Rateike says AT&T must follow where the market leads, and land line usage has dropped 50 percent over the last 10 years while wireless usage has jumped 300 percent. Cathy Allgood Murphy, AARP Kentucky's associate state director, says for a lot of people in eastern Kentucky, their land line is their life line, and they may not be able to afford an Internet connection, and they don't have cell phones because their communities, in the mountains, don't get cell phone reception.