Telephone companies paid for ads

The ads show a slot machine labeled "Nevada Legislature Jackpot." They urge voters to call the Legislature and urge their representatives to vote no on SB440.

SBC, a Texas-based regional telephone company, and Nevada Bell, the SBC company that serves Reno, would get the right "to raise your phone bill at will" under SB440, the ads state.

Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, says he and other panel members are unhappy the ads didn't disclose the identity of the telecommunications company that helped finance the nonprofit group.

The advertisement, which occupied three-quarters of a page in the Las Vegas Review-Journal last Thursday, bears the name Nevadans for Local Phone Competition.

Townsend told lobbyists last week that he didn't know who financed the ad but believed some of the lobbyists knew.

Jeff Ostelmel, executive director of Nevadans for Local Phone Competition, said he met with Townsend about his group's position earlier.

"We're not trying to play 'hide the ball,"' said Ostelmel, a former utility regulatory staff official and former lobbyist for AT&T.

Jim Endres, a lobbyist for AT&T, agreed. "There's no intent not to disclose anything" in the ad, he said.

Ostelmel on Monday said his group gets financial support from 10 or 12 telecommunications companies.

Other supporters include Cox Communications, which leases lines to Nextlink and is licensed to offer competitive local phone service; Nextlink; MGC Communications; and the Telecommunications Resellers Association, which has members in about 20 states. It also is backed by the American Association of Retired Persons, a muffler shop and others.

"They're all kind of upset, as I am, that we're not getting competition in telecommunications," Ostelmel said. He said he wants to see the kind of competition for local telephone lines that flourishes among wireless phone service companies.

Ostelmel said SB440 would remove regulatory fetters from Nevada Bell before competition can be established.

Backers of Nevadans for Local Phone Competition say it mirrors a bill submitted on SBC's behalf to the Texas Legislature.

Townsend said SB440 is incomplete and in skeletal form.

The critics of SB440, including AT&T, say they helped write alternative legislation, SB207.

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