In their Own Words: A Review of Recent Bell Operating Company 10-Qs

Abstract

The Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) have launched a coordinated campaign to convince both policymakers and stakeholders that their financial woes are attributable to Congressionally-mandated Federal Communications Commission policies necessary to open local telecoms markets to competition. Specifically, that regulators force the BOCs to sell unbundled network elements at their Total Element Long Run Incremental Cost (TELRIC). The law, econometrics and RBOCs' own public filings before regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission simply do not support the Bells' position, however. In fact, despite some recent difficulties, BellSouth, SBC, and Verizon remain extremely financially strong companies that enjoy a growing opportunity to gain customers and revenue as they accelerate their entry into the long distance marketplace. To the extent these companies are financially troubled, the problems reflect bad business decisions in unregulated ventures. Problems at Qwest are well documented and clearly unrelated to UNE-P or the impact of competition generally.