Seeking to Recoup Increased Costs for Local Connections : AT&T; Asks Private-Line Fee Hikes

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. proposed Thursday to restructure its interstate private-line tariffs to include increased costs for making local connections.

In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, the company did not specify any new rates but indicated that overall costs for private-line service are likely to rise as the company brings its rates more closely in line with the actual cost of providing service.

Private lines are special circuits leased by individual business and government customers to transmit voice, data and video between two or more locations. Local telephone companies charge AT&T; for connecting private lines to a customer’s office.

AT&T; said that while the costs of providing the actual long-distance service will decline, overall private-line prices will increase as AT&T; passes along to its business customers the local companies’ charges to AT&T.;

For example, the costs for long-distance service between Washington and Los Angeles are scheduled to decline. However, overall rates will rise because of the costs for local connections--such as those provided by Pacific Bell and GTE--that link a business customer’s offices in both cities to AT&T; facilities.

In its filing Thursday, AT&T; asked the FCC to waive the normal 45-day period for considering new rate proposals and to allow the company’s three new tariffs to take effect Feb. 15.--the date when local telephone company tariffs are scheduled to take effect.

If the FCC grants the waiver, AT&T; said it will submit a plan detailing specific tariffs.

Jim Byrnes, spokesman for AT&T; Communications, declined to say what those new tariffs might be, however.

“We can’t speculate on that because we’re still evaluating what our cost structure will be,” he said. “We feel that AT&T; needs to have new tariffs in place that will allow us to recover our costs.”

AT&T; first proposed to revise its private-line tariffs in October, 1983. But the FCC rejected those filings because the proposed rates were based only on estimates of how much AT&T; would have to pay local companies for local connections.

Under AT&T;’s new filing, business customers would have the option of purchasing the local connection for office-to-office communications directly from the local telephone companies or other vendors, or of continuing to use AT&T.;