Qwest filed Monday with state regulators to increase the price of no-frills phone service for the first time in 13 years.
The cost of a basic phone line, not including taxes and fees would rise from $14.88 a month to $16.99 under the rate proposal filed with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
Qwest said the rate increase, if approved by the PUC, would affect about half of its Colorado customers.
Those affected would be people who have basic phone service that is not bundled with Internet or satellite TV and who do not have a package of add-on phone services such as call waiting and call forwarding.
In addition to the proposed rate increase, Qwest asked that the rate cap on basic phone service be increased to $18.46, which would allow Qwest to seek that price in a future rate increase.
“We haven’t raised basic service rates in 13 years, and costs have gone up,” Qwest spokeswoman Jennifer Barton said. “It costs more now to pay technicians to install, to repair and to maintain. Our goal here is to recoup our costs.”
A bill that passed the Colorado legislature this year allows Qwest to seek rate hikes based on inflation rates. Before that, basic phone rates had been capped by a formula that assessed productivity gains along with inflation.
Qwest is proposing that the new rates take effect on Jan. 1, although it is possible that commission hearings on the rate hike could extend beyond that date.
Officials of the Colorado Office of Consumer Counsel, charged with representing customer interests in proposed rate hikes, could not be reached for comment late Monday.
Qwest in recent years has been losing telephone customers to wireless and cable competitors.
Qwest said in a second-quarter earnings report that it lost 1.1 million residential and business phone lines over the past year in its 14-state territory, an 8.2 percent drop.
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
