HOW MARRIAGE RATES : TELESIS CHARGES COULD STAY SAME.Byline: Deborah Adamson and Russ Britt Daily News Staff Writers Expected competition for phone service makes it unlikely Pacific Telesis
Pacific Telesis Group was one of the seven Regional Bell Operating Companies created after the 1984 breakup of AT&T as a holding company for Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell. Group customers will see higher rates or a reduction in services due to the company's planned merger with SBC (1) (SBC Communications Inc., San Antonio, TX, www.sbc.com) A large, national telecommunications company that grew from a multitude of local and regional companies, including Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell, into a single, unified brand by 2002. Communications, officials said Monday. The company's Pacific Bell operations, the largest phone carrier in California, will find rivals in AT&T and MCI Communications This article is about MCI before it merged with WorldCom. For other uses, see MCI. MCI Communications was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and Corp. as local phone service is opened up to competition over the next year. That will force the carrier to keep prices down in the long term, officials said. There also will be no immediate impact, company officials said. ``Nothing will change for Pacific Bell customers, not as a result of the merger,'' said spokeswoman Linda Bonniksen. ``As for other programs, those will not change as well. Pacific Bell has a long history of corporate responsibility as I'm sure does SBC.'' Consumer groups, however, expressed fear Monday that rates could increase in the long run as a result of the merger. ``Certainly, Pacific Telesis and SBC by themselves are big enough to compete as equals with long-distance carriers and other big companies,'' said Ken McEldowney, executive director of Consumer Action in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . ``As choices get reduced, we will see less competition.'' The deal could also put in jeopardy the extent of Pacific Bell's consumer education and other programs, he said. ``Of the regional bell companies, Pacific Bell has traditionally been a stronger proponent of consumer education, consumer protection and lifeline telephone services,'' McEldowney said. ``We feel a lot of this will disappear as the PUC (Public Utility Commission) A regulatory body in every state in the U.S. that governs public utilities within its jurisdiction such as electricity, gas, oil, sewer, water, transportation and telephone service. Some states call it the Public Service Commission (PSC). , consumer and community groups suddenly have to deal with SBC officials that are 1,500 miles away.'' San Antonio-based SBC, which serves five states in middle America Middle America 1 A region of southern North America comprising Mexico, Central America, and sometimes the West Indies. Middle American adj. & n. , will take control of Pacific Telesis, which serves California and Nevada, in a $16.5 billion stock swap A stock swap also known as a share swap or equity swap is a business takeover in which the acquiring company uses its own stock to pay for the acquired company. deal. One reason the companies joined was to take advantage of coming markets in long distance and band together as they face local phone service competition. The Telecommunications Reform Act took down barriers to competition in the local calling, long-distance and cable markets. As local phone companies, long distance carriers and cable companies get into each other's markets, they will offer competitive packages to attract business. Even though Pacific Telesis faces increased competition, it is unlikely that local phone rates will come down, said Steven Hubbard, the company's vice president for corporate development. ``The basic phone rates in California are regulated by the (California Public Utilities Commission The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC; also often commonly referred to as simply the PUC) [1] is a state Public Utilities Commission which regulates privately-owned utilities in the state of California, including electric power, ),'' Hubbard said. ``Our rates are below cost. So we'd just as soon not bring them down anymore.'' Consumer groups said they believe the marriage between the two phone companies will make consumers happy in the short run, but there likely will be higher rates and fewer services farther down the road. ``The federal telecommunications act ushered in a whole era of mergers and acquisitions,'' said Nettie Hoge, executive director of Toward Utility Rate Normalization In relational database management, a process that breaks down data into record groups for efficient processing. There are six stages. By the third stage (third normal form), data are identified only by the key field in their record. , a consumer watchdog group in San Francisco. ``Ultimately, there will be a gigantic battle of giants, each of them running into sacred territories. When all that's settled, oligopolies divide the market up.'' Hoge said that when the airline industry was deregulated, small airlines were either gobbled up by their big rivals or driven out of business. The telephone company merger must be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Communications Commission Federal Communications Commission (FCC), independent executive agency of the U.S. government established in 1934 to regulate interstate and foreign communications in the public interest. and the California Public Utilities Commission. California PUC officials said Monday that it will closely look at the merger to make sure it is not anti-competitive. Before giving its approval, the Commission said the merger must be ``fair and reasonable'' to utility employees and shareholders and serve the public interest. Tim Sullivan, a telecommunications adviser to Commissioner Henry Duque, said the panel has rejected corporate mergers before. ``It's really hard to read that,'' Sullivan said of the merger. ``In addition to not being able to prejudge pre·judge tr.v. pre·judged, pre·judg·ing, pre·judg·es To judge beforehand without possessing adequate evidence. pre·judg it, it's hard to make sense of it.'' CAPTION(S): 3 Charts Chart: (1-3--Color) Wedding Bells for Baby Bells The nickname given to the regional Bell operating companies after Divestiture in 1984. See Bell System and RBOC. (1) SBC Communications (2) PACIFIC TELESIS (3) The changing telecom industry AP |
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