Comporium seeks to drop usage fee

By Leigh Kelley
Times-News Staff Writer  
 
Published: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, July 26, 2010 at 7:18 p.m. 
 
BREVARD — Comporium has asked the N.C. Utilities Commission to allow it to drop expanded local calling area usage charges in an effort to be more competitive, the company’s general manager said Monday.   
 
The Brevard communications company wants to eliminate the 7 cents per minute usage (long distance) charge for calls in the expanded local calling area, which includes Asheville, Hendersonville, Cashiers and 19 other nearby communities, as part of an alternative regulatory plan recently proposed to the commission, said Frank Porter, general manager for Comporium’s Transylvania County operations. 

 The commission regulates pricing of all utilities in North Carolina.   
 
“We have worked for months on a plan to facilitate unlimited calling to the surrounding communities of interest for our customers in Transylvania County,” he said. “Local calling throughout the nine-county area, along with extremely reasonable monthly rates for quality land line service, will be a tremendous benefit to residents and businesses alike.”
 
The company, which provides local telephone, long distance, cable television and high-speed Internet, has sent out notices to customers about the proposed plan in the July billing cycle, Porter said.
 
In return for including the 22 additional communities within the surrounding area, Comporium would be allowed to increase some of its other prices to recover the revenue it is giving up from the ELCA’s usage charges, he said.
 
Comporium proposes to charge $12.70 per month for residential service, which represents a $1.99 increase over the $10.71 current rate. If the plan is approved, businesses will see a $2.74 increase over the present rate of $26.76 per month, bringing the new rate to $29.50, Porter said.   
 
The company has not changed its basic local telephone rates since 1991, and its proposed rates would remain among the lowest in the state, he said.   
 
“We’re the lowest price residential rate in the state with the exception of the Pineville community in Mecklenburg County,” he said. “If you look at what we are proposing to charge businesses (a $2.74 increase) and residences (a $1.99 increase), it comes out to being about the same amount that we are currently charging for long distance calls.”   
 
Qualified low-income customers will remain eligible for discounted local telephone service and will continue to receive a monthly credit of $13.50, and they will also receive unlimited local calling to the 22 communities that are within the 40-mile radius calling area, he said. 
   
As one of the remaining two local telephone companies still regulated in the state under a decades-old plan, Comporium is asking the commission to help free it to become more competitive, Porter said.  
 
“We are currently under an antiquated regulatory design, and that means we must go through a lengthy process to seek approval anytime we need to respond to the market,” he said. “That just doesn’t work well in today’s increasingly competitive environment.”   
 
The ability to have flexibility in pricing its products and services is essential to Comporium, he added.  
 
“The (commission) maintains oversight of what Comporium may charge for basic services and sets up criteria that the company must follow before it can adjust pricing under a formula based on the rate of inflation,” he said. “It is a lengthy process. We just need to be better marketers and do things on a quicker basis. With that said, we still can’t just change pricing any time we want to. But once this is approved, we won’t have to go back to the utilities commission every time we want to do something. The plan will govern how prices can change.”  
 
The commission will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Brevard City Hall council room. After the public hearing, if the utilities commission approves the proposed plan, Comporium customers could see changes on their bills later this year, Porter said.