SB 157 Still Discriminates Against Rural Consumers, According to CenturyLink

DENVER, March 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Consumer discrimination remains a part of a slightly amended Colorado SB 157 that passed the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee Wednesday. The committee reviewed the bill after it was added to the agenda Wednesday morning.

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As amended, SB 157 continues to discriminate against one set of consumers by cutting off high cost support for CenturyLink’s rural consumers while increasing support for other rural consumers.

“The bill continues to legislate discrimination of one very large group of consumers. It allows a consumer living on one side of the street in rural Colorado to continue to receive High Cost Fund support while his neighbor on the other side of the street will not, simply because of the logo at the top of their telephone bills” said Jim Campbell, CenturyLink regional vice president for regulatory and legislative affairs. “We continue to be baffled that lawmakers voting in favor of this bill feel it is good public policy to write consumer discrimination into Colorado law.”

The Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee chose to amend and vote on SB 157 even as the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) was scheduled to issue a report on the competitive landscape of telecommunications in Colorado at the exact same time. The PUC postponed its report until Friday.

Three amendments to SB 157 were adopted, but none addressing the discriminatory treatment of consumers was introduced. SB 157 passed the committee on a 5 to 1 vote with Sen. Ted Harvey ® voting against it. Sen. Shawn Mitchell ® was excused. SB 157 will be heard next before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

About CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings)
CenturyLink is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States. The company provides broadband, voice, wireless and managed services to consumers and businesses across the country. It also offers advanced entertainment services under the CenturyLink™ Prism™ TV and DIRECTV brands. In addition, the company provides data, voice and managed services to enterprise, government and wholesale customers in local, national and select international markets through its high-quality advanced fiber optic network and multiple data centers. CenturyLink is recognized as a leader in the network services market by key technology industry analyst firms, and is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises through Savvis, a CenturyLink company. CenturyLink’s customers range from Fortune 500 companies in some of the country’s largest cities to families living in rural America. Headquartered in Monroe, La., CenturyLink is an S&P 500 company and is included among the Fortune 500 list of America’s largest corporations. For more information, visit www.centurylink.com.

SOURCE CenturyLink, Inc.