lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (03/06/86)
If you're interested in the history of post-divestiture rate issues, I strongly urge you to pick up some copies of the various communications-oriented periodicals that go into such matters in great detail. I recently saw an article in one of them (but I don't recall which one) that went through all this point-by-point. Basically, the FCC still considers AT&T to be a "special case." They are still FAR more constrained by the FCC when it comes to rate setting than are their competitors. There is a long history (since divestiture) of AT&T proposing various sorts of long distance calling reductions that have been disapproved by the FCC, usually after loud screams of protest from MCI, etc., who consider an AT&T free to lower their overall rates too much of a threat. So AT&T's competitors protest virtually every action AT&T makes to lower rates, establish discount packages for consumers and/or businesses, etc. In practice, the pattern of FCC approved rate reductions for AT&T has tended to favor bulk buy plans rather than across-the-board reductions. Remember that AT&T is faced with paying the same increased costs for local network access as is its competitors, but is faced with a more restrictive rate setting environment which makes it much more difficult for them to adjust their overall rate structures in a fully flexible manner. If you check out the history of FCC disapproved AT&T requests for LOWER RATES in various areas, you might be quite surprised. In any case, I'm not going to try discuss here the issues that surround the overall question of whether or not such tight control of AT&T by the FCC is or is not currently necessary to ensure a competitive environment. I'm only pointing out that such control is presently in force. --Lauren--