ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) (01/30/89)
Peter Pavlvcik complains about ITI providing misleading information regarding pay telephone charges and service and the Moderator suggests Peter write to Judge Greene. Don't waste your time. The outrageous charges are the result of policy decisions taken by the FCC prior to divestiture (e.g. deregulating resale). If you want to complain to anyone, it should be to the FCC or to the local PUC. I note that ITI has been banned from operating in Ohio by the Ohio PUC because of the type of misleading practices Peter describes. Marvin Sirbu Carnegie Mellon University internet: ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu bitnet: ms6b+%andrew@CMCCVB [Moderator's Note: But it was Harold who opened the door to this kind of abuse. Certainly the FCC played a role in it; but everyone, including the FCC, took the lead from His Onery, Judge Greene. PT]
ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) (02/01/89)
PT- How could Harold have "opened the door to this kind of abuse" if it was authorized by the FCC prior to any act taken by Judge Greene? To assert that "everyone, including the FCC, took the lead from His Onery, Judge Greene" is to ignore the fact that it was in 1969--five years before the Antitrust suit heard by Judge Greene was even filed!-- that the FCC authorized competition in long distance, and 1980, more than a year before the decision to break up AT&T was made, that unlimited resale was authorized, opening up the market for alternative operator services companies. Remember also that the Modification of Final Judgement is a Consent Decree. That means, it is a decision which was agreed to by the parties (the Justice Department and AT&T) and presented to the court for its approval. Judge Greene never proposed divestiture, Assistant Attorney General Baxter, and AT&T President Charles Brown did. And they did so not under pressure from Judge Greene, but in order to derail legislation then pending in Congress which would have been even worse! (See for example Temin, Peter, "The Fall of the Bell System," (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1987). There are many things one can blame on Judge Greene (continuing restrictions on RBOC participation in information services, for example), but there are many parties in the story of telecommunications policy evolution: and the FCC, the Justice Department and the Congress have been messing around since long before Judge Greene got involved. You do a great service in moderating the telecom digest, but please, check your facts before flaming. Marvin Sirbu Professor of Engineering and Public Policy Carnegie Mellon University