David Greising is dead wrong in his criticism of the proposed $224 million credit to Ameritech customers negotiated by the Citizens Utility Board and other consumer representatives (“$50 Ameritech credits should be closer to $78,” Business, Jan. 18). Averaging about $50 per customer, it would be the largest such credit ever in Illinois and is far more than could be won through litigation. The “quietly” released audit Greising refers to was the basis of the negotiations, which he would have known had he asked.
Even if consumers were to win on every single one of the dozens of contested issues before regulators and in the courts, most consumers would never see a nickel of the savings from Ameritech’s 1999 merger with SBC Communications. That’s because under the current formula for sharing this money with consumers, Ameritech itself gets to choose which services get any rate reductions. In the past, the company has chosen to apply the lion’s share of mandated rate cuts to volume discounts for larger customers and to reductions in the costs of optional services such as call forwarding, caller ID and call waiting, to which most customers do not subscribe.
While Greising may want to see five more years of costly litigation, most consumers would rather have a couple of months of free service this spring. That’s why CUB, the Illinois attorney general, the Cook County state’s attorney and the city of Chicago all agreed that the proposed settlement is in the public interest. We’re confident that the Illinois Commerce Commission will agree.
