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RALEIGH — Regulatory changes that phone companies say they need to compete with wireless providers and cable companies could hurt consumers, particularly those who buy only the most basic land-line services, say consumer advocates.

The measure, which passed the state House last week, amounts to a partial deregulation of telephone services provided by companies such as AT&T and North State. Under the bill, utility regulators would no longer keep close tabs on services and prices related to local phone service.

“You’ve got some legacy rules and regulation that were created to manage an industry that frankly no longer exists,” said Clifton Metcalf , a spokesman for AT&T, which pushed for the bill. “Consumers have a tremendous amount of choice now.”

But consumer advocates say that those choices — mainly mobile phones and phones provided by cable companies — aren’t available equally across the state. And they argue less-wealthy customers could suffer if rates are allowed to rise.

“(Phone companies) would now have carte blanche to raise prices as they want to with the one exception of stand-alone consumer lines,” said Bill Wilson , a lobbyist for AARP, who said the rise in rates would hurt more than just those over 50.

The price controls that would still apply to stand-alone lines, Wilson said, would only apply to customers who use no other services, such as voice mail, call waiting or caller ID.

“That’s a small number of people,” Wilson said.

The bill, H 1180, passed on a 102-11 vote during one of the most hectic weeks of the year as members of the General Assembly faced a deadline for getting bills past the House or Senate. It was considered along with hundreds of bills that flowed through the House last week.

The measure still has to pass the Senate, and advocates say they hope that skepticism expressed by a few legislators would spread.

“The phone companies had made a compelling case, but then the consumer advocates brought up some concerns,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison , a Greensboro Democrat who voted no.

She and other legislators said they were not convinced more competition would necessarily mean lower prices.

Rep. Paul Luebke , a Durham Democrat, said the same argument was used to push for less regulation in the cable industry in recent years. Legislators, he said, were told that more competition would mean a choice of cable providers and lower prices for consumers.

“We just haven’t seen that happen,” Luebke said.

This same tussle over telephones has played out in other states, including Alabama, Indiana, South Carolina and Tennessee, with AT&T pushing for — and getting — lighter regulation in those states over the objections of skeptical consumer advocates.

The pricing effects of that related legislation have yet to take hold in most of those other states, consumer advocates say.

In Indiana, which passed a similar bill in 2006, prices have not risen, reports Grant Smith   of the watchdog group Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana. But he said his group had anecdotal reports that raise question about customer services issues.

“We have to look into this more thoroughly. However, complaints are definitely on the rise,” Smith wrote in an e-mail.

But AT&T’s Metcalf said the deregulation measure would allow the company to respond more quickly to customer requests. For example, changes to how bills are formatted or what kind of phone book a customer receives now has to be vetted by the N.C. Public Utilities Commission.

And he points out that AT&T has gone from having 2.5 million customers 10 years ago to just over 1.5 million today. By comparison, there are 7.3 million wireless phone customers in the state — about twice the number of phone numbers assigned to the North Carolina’s traditional land -line telephone companies.

“Look at the areas where government has had the lightest hand over the past several years — wireless and the Internet — and you can see what has happened. They are consumer-driven marketplaces. The result has been lower prices, better service,” Metcalf said.

But Al Ripley , a consumer advocate with the N.C. Justice Center, a liberal advocacy group, said consumers should be wary of the phone company’s claims.

He said the state’s utility regulators ensure that everyone — even those with low incomes — have access to affordable and good quality phone service.

“This bill eliminates both those protections,” Ripley said.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com