gast@cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) (04/20/89)
Our moderator who is always finding great new AT&T and BOC services
seems to have missed this story about AT&T. (If it had been an AOS,
I feel we would have received a long story about it).
Capping a two-year investigation, the FCC unanimously ruled last week
that AT&T illegally offered customized telephone networks to large
business customers at special prices. The FCC ordered AT&T to make
these networks available to all customers.
The tariff under which these networks are offered is called Tariff 12
service. The FCC found that AT&T currently restricts this service to
certain geographic areas. Such restriction is illegal under the
communications act of 1934.
I and others have pointed out that the 70% market share controlled
by AT&T makes this type of abuse possible. Due to the cost nature
of the telephone business (high fixed costs, almost zero marginal
cost), subsidizing large firms is likely to occur. Providing
fair telephone service to all is one reason that I and others do
not favor deregulating AT&T. Allowing AT&T to behave like an AOS
is not going to solve our telephone problems. A much better solution
is to regulate the AOSes.
David Gast
gast@cs.ucla.edu
{uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast