News from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission
Phone: (405)
522-2100, FAX: (405) 522-1623, www.occ.state.ok.us
August 30,
2001
BELL’S ATTEMPT
TO RAISE PHONE BILLS RAISES EYEBROWS AT THE COMMISSION
(Oklahoma City) – Armed with
an outside legal opinion, Southwestern Bell wants to interpret its tariff to
allow it to push nearly a third (50) of the exchanges it serves in Oklahoma up
into the next, higher priced classification citing the addition of more access
lines as the reason.
Bell claims it is merely
asking the Commission to do what it is already allowed to do under its existing
tariff. Bell’s request will add as much as $10.20 annually to each residential
phone line and up to $61.44 per year to each business line, amounting to an
$11,800,000 increase in Bell’s annual revenue.
Ernest Johnson, Director of
the Commission’s Public Utility Division, said “The Commission’s utility staff
will conduct a thorough review and analysis of the methodology used by Bell.
One of the issues it will focus on is how they determined the growth and higher
numbers of access lines claimed in each exchange.”
According to Johnson,
“Bell’s rationale to reclassify ignores the new Oklahoma Plan of alternative
regulation agreed to last year by the company, the Commission, Governor Frank
Keating, the State Attorney General and the Legislature. That agreement
stipulated a five year rate freeze and a cap on prices until 2005 making Bell’s
latest move appear inappropriate and inconsistent.”
Johnson said the staff’s
review will get underway shortly.
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All OCC news releases and advisories are available for review and downloading on the OCC web site at www.occ.state.ok.us