Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
The New
York Times
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January 1, 2000, Saturday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section B; Page 4; Column 1;
Metropolitan Desk
LENGTH: 607 words
HEADLINE: Bell Atlantic Rate Request For New Jersey
Criticized
BYLINE: AP
DATELINE: NEWARK, Dec. 31
BODY:
A consumer advocate and the AT&T
Corporation criticized the Bell Atlantic Corporation in New Jersey today for
seeking an end to regulation of local telephone rates.
Both said they
disagreed with Bell Atlantic's premise that the $1.5 billion market for local
phone service in New Jersey had become sufficiently competitive to warrant
removing price caps. "It's typically outrageous," the consumer advocate, Anthony
Wright, program director for New Jersey Citizen Action, said. "It's so
wrong-headed, you wonder if Y2K didn't come early for them.
"Any
ratepayer can tell you they don't have a choice in local service. They have to
go with the one monopoly, Bell Atlantic."
A Bell Atlantic spokeswoman,
Soraya Rodriguez, said the company has 55 competitors for local service in New
Jersey, with 13 more poised to enter the market. "We are the ones who are
regulated," she said. "Our competitors aren't. We are asking to be able to
compete under the same circumstances."
Mr. Wright argued, however, that
there is no real competition. Those 55 providers essentially serve only large
commercial and industrial customers, so residential and small-business users
have no choice and must use Bell Atlantic, he said.
Jon Mellor, a
spokesman for AT&T, said Bell Atlantic remains the "dominant market power,"
providing more than 98 percent of the local service in the areas that it covers,
which is nearly the entire state.
Bell Atlantic-New Jersey made the
deregulation request on Thursday in a petition to the State Board of Public
Utilities. The board's current caps, in place since 1993, expire on Dec. 31,
2000. The company wants the caps removed after Jan. 1, 2001, suggesting that the
utilities board approve its initial rates, after which Bell Atlantic could
charge what it wants.
If approved, deregulation would not only free Bell
Atlantic from price restraints on local service, but enable it to seek
permission to offer long-distance service.
It could not immediately be
determined when or if the utilities board would hold hearings on the proposal.
Calls to its offices today rang unanswered.
Bell Atlantic offers basic
household service for $8.19 a month, but maintains that the true cost is $16 to
$20. Its petition to the utilities board does not say what the basic charge
would be if deregulated, only that Bell Atlantic would remain committed to
providing affordable service, Ms. Rodriguez said.
She said she could not
say whether its rates would rise or fall. "It would be market driven," she said.
AT&T and Bell Atlantic are wrangling on several fronts, with the
disputes stemming from the Telecommunications Act of 1996,
which allows a Bell company to enter long-distance markets after showing it has
opened its local monopoly to competitors.
The Federal Communications
Commission said last week that Bell Atlantic could offer long-distance service
to its local customers in New York, the first time regulators had given such an
approval to a regional Bell company. Bell Atlantic said it would start offering
the service Jan. 5 in New York, an $8 billion-a-year long-distance market.
AT&T, the nation's largest long-distance carrier, asked a federal
appellate court on Tuesday to block that plan, saying Bell Atlantic had failed
to clear several key federal regulatory hurdles.
Approval of Bell
Atlantic's petition by the Board of Public Utilities could allow the company to
claim that it should be allowed to provide long-distance service to New Jersey
customers.
Mr. Mellor said today that Bell Atlantic in New Jersey was
far behind its operations in New York in opening its local network to
competitors. http://www.nytimes.com
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