The structural separation would require BellSouth to divide its residential and business sales organization from the portion of its business that provides network access to other local telecommunications providers. The result would effectively make BellSouth's retail sales operation into a competitive local exchange carrier, or CLEC, which would operate under the same pricing guidelines and operational structure as other CLECs, which must lease access to BellSouth's network to provide service to their customers. We provide parity to all of our customers, whether they are wholesale or retail customers. Our current structure is open. We've lost 30 percent of the business market.
Competition is alive and well and growing stronger every day.
The petition argues, however, that because most CLECs are dependent on BellSouth to offer telephone lines, the incumbent service provider has used its knowledge of their business to engage in anti-competitive practices. As a result, Tennesseans have not yet obtained the benefits of having the choices for local telephone services they were promised more than five years ago. If those systems don't work effectively, then the competitor can look bad. Greg Mitchell, spokesman for the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, said TRA officials had not had time to review the petition. Regan would not comment on the company's plans to file with other states which BellSouth serves.