Wireless is not a substitute for wireline, argued a commenter...
Wireless is not a substitute for wireline, argued a commenter before the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. Multiple people responded to an Aug. 27 PRC request for thoughts on an August Pew study on the topic. “The Pew Study findings…
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re-enforce the NMAGO [New Mexico attorney general’s office] view that mobile wireless telephony is not a functionally equivalent or substitute service to wireline services in the context of evaluating CenturyLink QC’s claims that there is effective competition for local exchange services in its serving area in New Mexico,” QSI Consulting Chief Financial Officer Warren Fischer told the PRC in a filing released Monday (http://xrl.us/bnpbax). “Dropped calls are typical in mobile wireless communications,” Fischer said. Wireless phones may be better seen as “complements” rather than “substitutes,” he said. CenturyLink Regulatory Operations Director Robert Brigham disagreed. The Pew study “provides little if any insight into the functions of wireless service and how those relate to the functions of wireline voice service,” he said (http://xrl.us/bnpbbs). Wireless, cable telephony, CLEC and interconnected VolP “indisputably” provide equivalent service, he maintained in what has become a cornerstone of CenturyLink’s argument for a ruling of effective competition and subsequent deregulation (CD Aug 30 p5). Telemarketers now contact wireless and wireline, the Pew study said, which Brigham sees as evidence of their equivalence. Cellphones do suffer from dropped calls but it’s one attribute among many, he said. “Certainly, wireline and wireless phones are not identical,” Brigham said. “However, they do not need to be in order to provide functional equivalence and serve as substitutes."