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Show PHONE COMPANY ASKS F0R1NCREASE Announcement was made today to-day that the Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph company com-pany has asked the Utah Public Service commission for authority to revise certain exchange and toll telephone rates in Utah to enable the company to meet increased in-creased operating expenses and improve net earnings sufficiently sufficient-ly to attract the additional capital cap-ital that is required to continue j its program of expansion and improvement of its service in the j state. The company states that although it is handling the largest larg-est volume of business in its history his-tory of operations in Utah, its earnings on its intrastate investment invest-ment in telephone plant are lower than at any time since World War I at an annual rate Of 2.67 per cent on a going basis. The present low earnings situation situ-ation is brought about by expenses ex-penses increasing faster than revenues. Labor costs which comprise 65 per cent of total expenses ex-penses have been the largest source of increased costs of do-'Continued do-'Continued on page five) o program will not come from the mereasici revenue requested in the revision of rates. All of that will be needed to maintain good service to meet operating expenses expens-es and interest and dividend requirements. re-quirements. In order to attract the additional capital that will be required, earnings will have to be at a rate that will make investment in-vestment in the business attractive. attrac-tive. The proposed new rates would increase the company's total revenues re-venues in Utali by approximately $76,000 a month. Since federal and other income taxes would take 40 per cent of this amount, monthly net earnings would be improved by about $45,600. The effect on individual customers will vary considerably and will depend on the type and amount of service they have and the exchange ex-change from which they get local lo-cal service. The last general adjustment of telephone rates in Utah was in 1938, most of the adjustments at that time being decreases. In general, present telephone rates in Utah are the same or lower than rates established in 1922. The proposed exchange rates are designed to recognize that there is some variation in the value as well as the cost of the service with the number of telephone! tele-phone! in an exchange. The present pres-ent intrastate lull schedule is adjusted to make it conform more neatly to the interstate schedule at varying distances, and to provide pro-vide about one fourth of the necessary nec-essary revenue. TELEPHONE COMPANY ASKS FOR RATE INCREASE (Continued from Dage one) ing business. Wage rates have increased substantially during and since the war due to adjust- ments comparable to those made in other industries of similar skill. Labor costs are now con- j suming 59 cents of every revenue dollar, compared to 35 cents in 1941. The cost of nearly every-! thing the company uses in constructing con-structing and maintaining its plant and service is substantially higher. Some of the items listed by the company were poles which had increased 64 per cent; cop-' per wire B3 per cent; and lead covered cable 104 pet cent. The company states that during dur-ing the war lite extension of its plant was limited to projects that were essential to the war effort and public health and safe- ! ty and that since V-J day the I demand for service has been so j great that it has not been able to j restore the prewar margins in its plant that are necessary for ef- ficient operations and satisfactory satisfac-tory service. Despite the fact that it has carried out the larg-1 est construction program in the last two years ever undertaken I in the state, about $7,000,000, and gamed nearly 36,000 telephones, a 32 per cent increase since V .1 day, there were on Oct. 1, 1947 neai ly 11,000 orders which could not be completed because of lack of facilities. The company's engineers estimate that in order to take care of present orders on hand and to restore normal margins mar-gins in plant and provide for replacements re-placements and offered business during a five year period ending 1951, that a gross construction program in the order of $24,000,-000 $24,000,-000 will be required. The company points out that the new capital required for this |