FCC Proposes to Let AT&T; Simplify Order Procedure

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday proposed letting American Telephone & Telegraph Co. return to taking a single order for telephone equipment and long- distance service.

Current rules force consumers go to one branch for long-distance service and another for a phone or switchboard to hook up to it.

“It appears the costs outweigh the benefits” of separation, FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler said.

For consumers it could mean the return to one-stop shopping for a customer wanting both long-distance service and equipment from AT&T.; For AT&T; it would mean sending one sales representative instead of two.

However, local service would still be sold separately by the local telephone company. And a customer could continue to buy service from one company and equipment from another.

In its notice of the proposed rule, the commission asked for public comment on the matter. The final decision could come in about six months.

‘No Longer a Monopoly’

AT&T; Executive Vice President Charles Marshall said the commission proposal doesn’t go far enough.

“It is unthinkable that government would prolong monopoly rules and bureaucratic control of our business when there is no longer a monopoly,” Marshall said in a statement. “Customers are getting the runaround. They are fed up with going to one part of AT&T; for service and another part of AT&T; for equipment.

“Today’s action needlessly continues customer confusion, denies the American public lower-cost products and innovative enhancements to the telecommunications network and perpetuates a wholly unfair advantage for our competitors, both foreign and domestic,” he said.

“The consent decree which we entered into in 1982 was aimed at getting government off our back. It’s high time the government lives up to its end of the commitment.”

Members of the commission expressed an interest in getting rid of all the restrictions imposed under a 1980 ruling, known as Computer II, that forced AT&T; to market customer premises equipment and computerized communications through a separate company. AT&T; did that by setting up AT&T; Information Services.

‘To Pull the Plug’

“I’d like to pull the plug on Computer II,” Commissioner Mimi Weyforth Dawson said.

Commissioner Dennis R. Patrick called for a study of “how we ought to, in 1985, regulate services.”

Thursday’s proposal also contemplates continuing the requirement that AT&T; keep separate financial records for equipment sales and leasing, which AT&T; said would leave it at a competitive disadvantage.

“We still have to go to unnecessary expense,” said Pic Wagner, a Washington spokesman for AT&T.; “If we’ve got these unnecessary costs, then we’ve got to include them in the cost of a product.”

The FCC turned down a request by AT&T; that it be allowed to set up a single point of contact for federal government customers of AT&T.;

Last April, AT&T; asked the commission to throw out the Computer II restrictions.