OCR Text |
Show Continental Tel. official borates pending statute Continental Telephone Chairman Charles Wohl-stetter Wohl-stetter told the House Subcommittee on Communications Com-munications today that the Communications Regulatory Regula-tory Commission (CRC) proposed in the Communications Communi-cations Act of 1978, "is given virtual dictatorial powers as the bill is now written. It is an ungainly bundle of carrots and sticks which intensifies the condiments in an already overspiced government gov-ernment stew." In testimony before the subcommittee, which Wohlstetter commended for confirming that it is the responsibility of the Congress to determine national telecommunications telecommunica-tions policy, he also said that under the present draft of the bill the CRC would be able to determine deter-mine service and carrier classification, make property prop-erty evaluations, set depreciation de-preciation schedules, prescribe pre-scribe requirements and grant exemptions from all of these. "It can structure struc-ture the industry at will," he said. Wohlstetter also said the powers proposed for the CRC would strip state regulatory commissions of their authority. "By so doing, regulatory responsiveness respon-siveness to local needs and responsibilities of state regulators to their nimediate constituents uvill be eliminated. The nature of the federal beast j s not to give up territorial prerogatives," he said. The Continental chair-ban chair-ban recommended to the liubcommittee the creation jpf a joint federal-state industry board to provide guidelines for national 'plication of those aspects as-pects of the telephone pusiness that lend themselves them-selves to it. As an rxample, Wohlstetter said I hat such a board would stermine the method for lalculating the access Lharge to telephone company com-pany lines paid by private suppliers of long distance irvice, as well as the onditions for its distribution. distri-bution. , As drafted the Communications Com-munications Act of 1978 UR 13015) empowers the Communications Regula-ory Regula-ory Commission to ad-linister ad-linister the settlements rocess through which avenue from intrastate nd interstate calls is ollected from individual elephone companies, iooled, and disbursed cording to a complex rmula based on costs curred by the compan-i:-3. , The settlements process v.'. is now administered by the industry. The bill would establish a Universal Univer-sal Compensation Fund to collect and redistribute long distance revenue, including access charges paid into the fund by specialized common carriers car-riers providing private long distance service. Wohlstetter told the subcommittee that "there is no justification for creating within the CRC a means for collecting and disbursing these funds. The mechanics for disbursement disbur-sement exist within the industry. They have been effective. Why Change?," he said. He also called for safeguards safe-guards that would "allow us to manage our own business. We don't want this (Universal Service Compensation Fund) to be used to force judgments on us," he said. According Accor-ding to Wohlstetter, the proposed bill contains elements for de facto control to the telephone industry through asset distribution and restructuring restruc-turing potential. Wohlstetter was also critical of the provision of the bill that would force telecommunications operating oper-ating companies to shed their manufacturing subsidiaries sub-sidiaries within three years after passage. This provision of the law would affect AT&T's Western Electric and GT&E's Automatic Electric. Continental Con-tinental Telephone currently cur-rently has no manufacturing manufactur-ing subsidiaries. |