AT&T Kentucky president Mary Pat Regan is calling on legislators to further modernize telecom laws that will result in economic growth.

"It is time for new regulatory reform measures to recognize the way the telecommunications environment has changed," Regan wrote in today's Lexington Herald-Leader. "We need updated rules that help increase investment in the newer technologies that households and businesses are demanding while better enabling companies to provide more wireless and broadband to Kentuckians."

While Regan praised lawmakers for the "major step" they took by passing the Emerging Technology and Consumer Choice Act in 2006, which "removed rules on the vast majority of landline offerings by traditional telecom companies," she said more "regulatory reform" of wireless communication services is needed that will encourage more "investment and innovation from all providers."

This echoes a call we recently made in a Bluegrass Beacon column, calling on lawmakers to "get out their legislative backhoes, clear out the underbrush of telecom regulations and unleash some of that economic power that lays dormant at the foundation of our tepid economy."

Without it, we will continue to have, as the title of Regan's article states, "rotary-dial rules in an i-Phone world."