Today's Telephony Online reports that MCI sent an open letter to NARUC's winter meeting supporting the state deregulation of retail pricing and reporting requirements for all local exchange carriers. According to the article:

"It is MCI's view that states should have less of a role in regulating retail telecommunications services and service providers," Marsha Ward, MCI's national director-state regulatory, wrote in the letter. "Simply put, convergence means that telecommunications can no longer be thought of as a traditional, state-regulated utility any more. Attempts to keep such regulation on 'traditional providers' such as MCI or the ILECS simply skew the marketplace by creating an asymmetry of regulation."

MCI is also reportedly calling for access charge reform and market-based USF reforms such as voucherizing, among other things.