Telephone Price Wars Called Off

from the where-will-this-lead? dept

The Washington Post has an article discussing some of the issues mentioned here last week about MCI and AT&T raising their long distance rates. The article points out that most of these telecom companies are breathing a sigh of relief that they can finally raise rates, all because one of their competitors decided to do so. Apparently, this signals that the "price war" is over. The telecom firms say they want to compete now on the bundled services they offer, but I find it hard to see how most of the offerings differentiate themselves at all. The only plan that I'm impressed with has been MCI's "The Neighborhood" which offers a true "flat-rate" pricing plan for phone service - though, that flat-rate has gradually been rising thanks to ever-changing "fees". I still think that increasing telephone service prices will start pushing people towards alternatives, such as only using mobile phones or VoIP options like Vonage.

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