The debate continues over telcos who prevent users from switching to a local voice competitor if they want DSL. Many existing bell DSL customers who do make the switch to a competing phone service get their DSL lines disconnected, sometimes before the actual switch even occurs.

Customers also often aren't informed that their DSL line will be terminated if they change local providers. When they call to complain, they're told they can restore their DSL line once they switch their local service back. One customer in Georgia switched to MCI local service and lost her Earthlink DSL connection (provided via BellSouth) without warning. When she cancelled local service and switched back, BellSouth connected her to their own DSL service with a $200 fee. She eventually restored her original Earthlink service and obtained a refund, but not without a scuffle.

Bell competitors charge that the hassle-ridden tactic is akin to holding a customer hostage; the bells suggest that the affected customers can usually get DSL via the same CLEC offering them local service. Sometimes the bells suggest providing DSL in conjunction with CLEC DSL is technically impossible, often they've suggested it wasn't legal. Both defenses have received ample criticism by users in our forums.

In certain portions of Northern California, where 18 percent of the populace has DSL, none could have gotten it without having SBC as their local phone carrier. Competitors charge that the problem is related to telco policy, and isn't a technical or legal issue. "It's not a technical problem," recently opined Ken McNeely, president of AT&T in California. "It's a policy decision by SBC (and others) that should rightly be scrutinized. It is clearly anticompetitive."

According to a story from the print edition of the Wall Street journal earlier this year, one customer who complained to SBC about the tactic was told "that for technical reasons, (we) can't provide DSL service to customers who change their local voice-calling service from the carrier."

SBC argues that the Clecs could easily provide the DSL service themselves. "If AT&T (or MCI) wanted to provide their new dial-tone customer with DSL, they could do so," recently noted SBC spokesman John Britton. "In fact, one would think they would be eager to generate more revenue from the access line they just won over."

The debate has been particularly heated between BellSouth and MCI, who have been engaged in a 16 month legal battle over the issue in several states. In each instance BellSouth suggests DSL is simply an added phone service that should be bundled, while MCI, like AT&T, suggests the tactic is anti-competitive.

In some states like Louisiana, state regulators have ruled that such a tactic won't be tolerated. In a 3-1 vote last December, the Louisiana Public Service Commission ordered BellSouth to keep providing DSL service, regardless of who customers wanted as their phone provider. The decision has caught the eye of other states, who have been bombarded with considerable complaints by DSL users confused by the sudden disconnects.

Instead of accepting the ruling and changing their tactics, BellSouth executives decided to threaten the state, saying they'd cease rural community DSL deployments; BellSouth's Louisiana President William Oliver warning at the time that BellSouth would "halt investment in its high-speed Internet network if the ruling is not changed." So far, that tactic hasn't worked, and additional states are following Louisiana's lead.

Last week the Georgia Public Service Commission voted 3-2 to force BellSouth to provide DSL to Georgia consumers who switch local phone providers (See Atlanta Journal Constitution article). BellSouth lawyers attempted to argue that their DSL service is simply another feature, like MCI's Friends and Families calling plan. Not everyone had sympathy for the competitors, one dissenter at the PSC likening the Clec competitors to "parasites". BellSouth's lawyers hope to take the issue to the federal courts to decide.