Ill. legislature formed special subcommittee in each chamber to c...
Ill. legislature formed special subcommittee in each chamber to consider telecom bills meant to extend, replace or supplement current Ill. Telecom Act that expires July 1. New telecom rewrite subcommittees of Senate Environment & Energy Committee and House Telecom…
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Committee will hold separate hearings March 7 on various pieces of telecom legislation. Proposals on table range from Ameritech-backed bills (SB-134 and HB-492) that would deregulate almost all of company’s operations and services, to WorldCom- backed bills (SB-928 and HB-3243) that would require full structural separation of Ameritech’s retail and wholesale operations. Other bills being considered include SB-1055 to codify into state law federal Telecom Act’s competitive interconnection obligations on incumbents and extend rest of current Ill. Telecom Act until 2006, HB-1005 to simply extend current law 5 more years, HB-2156 to establish state universal service fund, SB-415 to largely deregulate depreciation and allow incumbent telcos to refer customers to their competitive affiliates, SB-595 to require open cable access for high-speed Internet services, SB-605 to remove competitive carriers from state service quality regulation and make it illegal under state law for incumbents to deny CLECs unbundled network elements. Legislature’s current session is scheduled to adjourn around end of May.