Missouri lets Embarq set its prices - Kansas City Business Journal:

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The Missouri operating company forOverland Park-based local phon e service provider Embarq (NYSE: EQ) met the conditions to be a competitivwe telecommunications company set forth in a bill the Generall Assembly passed last year, the release The designation means that the PSC no longef controls price and rate regulation and that Embarq can independentlg alter telephone rates based on market conditions. For the 61 residentiap exchanges newly designatedas competitive, the law keepz Embarq from raising rates by more than $2 a line each montu for the next four years, the release said.
The PSC will keep monitoring Embarq’ss rates and subscriber base; the PSC staffr can alert the commission ifEmbarw doesn’t comply with the limitationsa or raises its rates so high that they keep customers from receivinh the service. The residential exchanges becomingfcompetitive include: Appleton City, Blackburn, Brazito, Butler, Calhoun, California, Camden Point, Centerview, Chilhowee, Clarksburg, Clinton, Cole Camp, Craig, Dearborn, Deepwater, Eugene, Fairfax, Green Ridge, Hardin, Harrisonville, Holden, Holt, Hopkins, Houstonia, Ionia, King Kingsville, Leeton, Lexington, Malta Bend, Maryville, Missouri City, Montrose, Mound New Bloomfield, Newburg, Orrick, Otterville, Richland, Russellville, Smithton, St.
Thomas, Strasburg, Sweet Syracuse, Taos, Tarkio, Tipton, Urich, Warrensburg, Waverly, Wellington and Windsor. Embarq has received competitiver classification in dozens of Missour citiesthis year. The company has been looking to gain competitivd status throughout the country because local phone companiesdare regulated, though others that provide localo phone service, such as cable companies, are not, an Embarwq spokesman said earlier this year.
Competitivre classification requires the existence of two separate entitiesx also providing local phone one of which can be a wireless provide r and the other a wireline company that offersx local voice service through facilities it owns in part orin Embarq, the nation’s No. 4 local phone service provider, ranks No. 3 on the Kansad City Business Journal ’s list of area public companies. by in an $11.6 billiob deal expected to close in the firsft halfof 2009.