"John R. Covert 04-Jan-1990 2205" <covert@covert.enet.dec.com> (01/05/90)
N.E.T. had filed a complete rate restructuring of almost all services in Massachusetts, to take effect 31 December 1989. The D.P.U. has suspended these tariffs until 1 July 1990, and is holding public hearings. The first of these was tonight at the State House; future hearings are 24 Jan in Springfield, 25 Jan in Lee, 30 Jan in East Sandwich and (date missing) in Worcester. I attended the hearing tonight, at which little clarity appeared. I had expected some sort of handout with the new rates to be available, but I was wrong. I had expected N.E.T. to make some sort of presentation of the rates, but I was wrong. I was able to briefly borrow State Rep. Galvin's copy of the tariff to get an idea of what is proposed. This is truly a strange filing. The cornerstone of the filing is an increase of approximately $3/month in all categories of residential service, whether measured or otherwise. There are little things like an increase in the Touch-Tone charge from $0.58 to $0.98. But the truly strange stuff has to do with the "rate experimentation" as N.E.T. calls it. Disclaimer: all the new rates which follow are approximate, since I didn't get a chance to write it all down. Intra-LATA toll rates are proposed to remain the same for residential customers in Eastern Massachusetts, but business customers will get a new toll rate structure. Whereas intra-LATA toll currently varies from .19(1st min)/.09(addl min) to .55/.23, and is the same for both residence and business customers, and the same in either eastern or western Mass., the rate filing proposes to eliminate WATS and basically make all business lines pay roughly the current WATS rate, something like .01 per call and .12/minute, regardless of distance. Volume discounts apply. In Western Mass., both residence and business customers will pay something like .01 per call and .055/minute for any intra-LATA toll, regardless of distance. Message unit pricing remains the same in Eastern Mass., .111 for business customers and .0898 for residence customers (regardless of time of day), but the existing 3-message unit area in Boston Metro is folded into the 2-message unit area. But in Western Mass, local message units change to .01/call and about .012/minute during the peak period (9AM to 9PM) and less off-peak. These same peak/off-peak periods apply on Western Massachusetts intra-LATA toll and I think on Eastern Massachusetts business intra-LATA toll. It was a truly strange filing, and a truly strange hearing. I was one of the few people who spoke about the propriety of the rates, emphasizing that the national trend was to reduce or eliminate the Touch-Tone charge, not to increase it, asking if it was proper public policy to have toll rates different in different parts of the state or to lower business toll rates while keeping Eastern Mass residential toll rates higher than inter-LATA rates to almost anywhere outside the state. Most of the attendees were CWA or IBEW reps or members, every one of whom was angry with N.E.T. and dead set against allowing their employer any rate increase while N.E.T. is attempting to cut costs by reducing staff and hiring contractors from out of state. The mood of the employees is very, very bad, and they were very, very unruly, shouting down the N.E.T. attorney whenever he said anything they didn't like. /john