Four former state consumer advocates who now work for competitive...

into fully separate wholesale and retail business units. NASUCA held its annual meeting in conjunction with NARUC convention in Philadelphia. Daniel Clearfield of Harrisburg, attorney formerly with Pa. consumer advocate but now representing AT&T, said combination of high wholesale prices, CLEC difficulties in using incumbents’ operation support systems and inherent conflict of interest when incumbent provided both wholesale and retail services were structural issues that must be dealt with if local exchange competition was to flourish. Donna Sorgi, WorldCom federal regulatory vp and former Mass. consumer advocate, said incumbent Bell companies “force the CLECs to jump through many hoops while they campaign for deregulation” and seek limits on use of unbundled network elements (UNEs). “We [CLECs] can’t go it alone,” she said. “We need the states’ consumer advocates to fight for market-opening conditions at the states and the FCC. Consumer advocates are critical to the fight to save the ‘96 act. Your voice will validate what we are saying.” If regulators can set wholesale pricing and operation support system (OSS) access to rights before approving Bell long distance entry, she said, “we can do the rest.” Bill Haas, deputy gen. counsel for McLeod USA and former Iowa consumer advocate, said “Competition is perilously close to failure not because of bad CLEC business plans but because 5 years after the Telecom Act we still can’t get wholesale pricing right.” He urged that incumbents be required to provide wholesale services and network elements at discount until true wholesale-retail ordering parity was achieved. He urged consumer advocates to support lower wholesale prices, preservation of UNE platforms as local entry option, strong enforcement. Renardo Hicks, regulatory counsel for XO Communications and formerly with Pa. consumer advocate office, said local resale was failure because it limited CLECs’ ability to innovate. He said UNE-P “is the quickest way to achieve significant local market entry. That’s why the incumbents want to kill it.” He said consumer advocates should support UNE-P because that was key to getting CLECs to move into rural markets.