Regulators approve Sprint rates

Friday, July 30, 1999 | 3:10 a.m.

CARSON CITY - State regulators have granted a $23.3 million annual rate hike to Sprint Corp. - along with a credit to consumers that will help offset some of their higher costs.

Under an agreement among several parties in the rate case, Sprint's bill for basic business and residential service will go up nearly $2 a month per line. But customers will get a $30.60 credit beginning next month to offset early termination of a cap on local phone rates.

A no-frills residential line will cost Las Vegas customers $13.35 a month,up from $11.37.

MGC Communications and other competitors who use Sprint's lines to reach customers will get a subsidy as high as $3.65 a line monthly for each customer over three years. The total subsidy was limited to $2.25 million each year.

Lou Emmert, vice president and general manager for Sprint, said the company will invest more than $300 million in telecommunications equipment in southern Nevada over the next two years.

In other action, the PUC:

-Voted to require SBC Communications of San Antonio to explain why the state shouldn't review its planned merger with Ameritech Corp of Chicago. The action could delay the $60 billion merger. The PUC wants regulatory oversight of the merger based partly on SBC's ownership of Nevada Bell.

-Balked at a settlement with Nevada Power Co. in a suit over $4.2 million related to coal properties the company held in Utah.

-Licensed the first competitor for retail power sales after the start of deregulation.

Utility.com of Albany, Calif., anticipates other competitors will soon be filing applications for licenses to sell electricity in Nevada. Chris King, chief executive of Worldwideenergy Inc., doing business as Utility.com, predicts 10 to 20 competitors will enter the Neveda power market.