Phone company shuts down LV operation

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

Colorado River Communications, a company that has offered local exchange and long-distance telephone service in Las Vegas, shut down its local phone operation Monday in the wake of a billing dispute with Sprint.

Between 500 and 600 residential and business customers in Las Vegas had to find a new local phone company last week after Sprint began shutting off 800 lines CRC has leased from Sprint, the dominant communications company serving Southern Nevada.

CRC, which will continue to offer long-distance, toll-free and phone card services in Las Vegas, said last week that it was embroiled in a billing dispute with Sprint that has been unresolved for three months. Sprint responded that CRC hasn't paid its bills and that it has treated CRC as it would any other customer that is in arrears.

Neither company would confirm the amount in dispute, but other sources said it was as much as $250,000.

Problems for CRC began in May. Detra Page, a spokeswoman for Sprint in Las Vegas, said after 30 days, CRC was notified that it was in arrears; after 60 days, Sprint stopped hooking up new CRC customers; after 90 days, it decided to pull the plug.

On Monday, Sprint shut off CRC's remaining customers after agreeing to allow CRC to contact them to explain what was happening.

"We did disconnect the remaining lines today," Page said Monday. "And CRC still has its lines up so they can communicate with their customers."

About 400 lines were shut off Wednesday and Thursday, including those to CRC's corporate offices. When CRC officials complained to the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, Sprint agreed to reinstate CRC's lines so the company could communicate with its own customers about what they should do. Sprint gave CRC until Monday to wrap up those communications or to pay what it owed on the line leases.

Rick Hackman, manager of the consumer division of the PUC, was asked to broker a deal between the two companies and was hopeful that the dispute would be resolved. But late Monday, Hackman said nothing had changed.

"It looks like CRC is just not going to be able to hold it together," Hackman said. "It's disappointing when a fairly large player decides to go out of business. Unfortunately, that's one of the down sides of a competitive environment."

A CRC spokeswoman who declined to be identified said the company isn't going out of business, but that it is discontinuing its local phone service.

"Las Vegas is the only place where we have had a local exchange phone service," she said. "We'll continue to offer just our long-distance, 800 service and phone cards until we resolve the dispute with Sprint. We have a loyal customer following and they have been very supportive of us."

She said CRC was able to contact customers to advise them about signing on with another local telephone service provider so that they would not be without a phone for long.

There are 21 other active local exchange phone companies operating in Southern Nevada, but most of them aren't able to start up service for new customers for seven to 10 business days. Sprint has said it would be able to start up former CRC customers within 48 hours.

Hackman said Mpower Communications Corp. (formerly MGC Communications), the second-largest local exchange company serving the Las Vegas area, also agreed to try to speed up installations for former CRC customers so they wouldn't be without service for long.