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Show AT&T Asks for Long Distance Rate Increases American Telephone and Telegraph Company last week asked the Federal Communications Communi-cations Commission for an increase in-crease in long distance interstate inter-state telephone rates. The increases are centered on calls requiring operator assistance as-sistance such as person-to-person, credit card, collect and coin telephone calls, which are most costly to provide. Smaller increases are planned for station sta-tion calls dialed by customers during the busy weekday daytime day-time hours, according to Cliff Finch local manager for Mountain Moun-tain Bell. Not all rates would be increased. in-creased. Rates for evening, night or weeked calls that customers complete without operator assistance will remain re-main the same or in some cases be reduced. Thus the individual caller can avoid any increase by calling call-ing in low-rate hours and dialing dial-ing calls without operator assistance, as-sistance, Finch explained. "Even with the increase," he said, "rate levels for interstate inter-state calls are still about 14 percent below 1953 levels. In the same period, the consumer price index rose nearly 47 percent." per-cent." The rate changes, to become effective January 19, 1971, are designed to produce an additional addit-ional six percent ($385 million) in total interstate revenues, Finch said. This will be the first general increase in interstate long distance rates in 17 years. The rate changes are "moderate, "moder-ate, but vitally important if the Bell System is to sustain its massive service improvement program and meet fully the nation's growing communications communica-tions needs," Finch said. |
