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Source: Albuquerque Journal, N.存倉M.Dec. 23--SANTA FE -- A federal district judge recently upheld the legality of most of a 2010 Santa Fe city ordinance setting a telecom franchise fee in a ruling that could affect all New Mexico cities that charge franchise fees.Those fees generally are assessed for the use of public rights of way for telephone lines and poles.Such laws are constitutional, Judge Robert Brack said in his opinion, but Santa Fe's decision to quadruple the amount of fees paid by Qwest in 2010 did not meet federal requirements that such increases be fair and equitable.A spokesman for CenturyLink, which acquired Qwest in 2011, said in a prepared statement that the company "is pleased with the judge's ruling and appreciative of the time the court devoted to weighing this important issue, which protects customers from bearing -- directly or indirectly -- the costs of unreasonable government fees."The city of Santa Fe, also in a prepared statement, noted only that part of the ordinance has been struck down, and that the judge dismissed Qwest's claims that this and similar local government fee ordinances interfere with interstate commerce, which is governed by federal law.City officials declined to comment on whether they plan to appeal the judge's ruling, noting in the statement that the city "is reviewing the judge's decision to determine its next steps."Qwest sued Santa Fe in 2010, shortly after the new ordinance with higher fee provisions was enacted. The city raised the fee payments by 1 percent but also broadened and changed the basis on which the fees were calculated. As a result, the company's fee payments were expected to rise from about $225,000 or less annually to a projected minimum of $693,703.The recent court ruling noted that Qwest's profitability from its New Mexico operations was sufficiently high that "it is difficult to fathom any fee arrangement that would substantially impact Qwest's profitability." According to court documents, Qwest had paid the city $625,000 in fees as recently as 2001.But by 2010, the business climate was and continues to be very different for telecom companies than in earlier decades when the city's original fee contracts儲存had been negotiated, the judge noted.Then, Qwest and other big carriers often monopolized service areas. But Qwest's market share for residential and business phone service in the Santa Fe area has been eroded significantly in recent years as competitors, including wireless and cable-television companies, gain an increasing share of those markets.According to court documents, slightly more than a third of New Mexico households with phone service have gone wireless and Qwest's access lines over the last decade had declined by just more than 50 percent. Qwest's fees to the city also had fallen from the 2001 high to just over $159,000 by 2012.More significantly, the judge said, "none of Qwest's competitors" such as Verizon or Comcast "will be subject to the fee" in the 2010 ordinance, partly as a result of legal and technological complexities involving how telephone service is delivered to customers. (Comcast does pay the city fees on its cable-television service.)In addition, the city's basis for calculating the fees Qwest was required to pay under the ordinance also was flawed, the judge said.Consequently, he wrote, "considering the totality of circumstances, despite the fact that the fee provision of the 2010 ordinance would not likely have a significant impact on Qwest's profitability, the court finds that the fee provision ... within the 2010 ordinance is neither fair and reasonable nor completely neutral and nondiscriminatory."The judge's ruling follows a trial on the issues in July, and nearly a decade of wrangling between Qwest and city officials over fees and other service provisions.The ruling noted that other cities have followed the legal controversy closely and several, including Albuquerque, Taos and Rio Rancho, have considered adopting franchise fee ordinances similar to Santa Fe's but have held off pending resolution of the case. Still other cities are operating under expired franchise agreements, as Santa Fe did for part of the decade before the 2010 ordinance was enacted.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) Visit the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.) at .abqjournal.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉