Pacific Bell Bills Get a New Look : Larger Printouts, Clearer Information to Be Provided

Pacific Bell’s 9.2 million telephone customers may not be any more thrilled by their August phone bills than by July’s, but they will probably find them easier to read.

Starting next month, Pacific will print its bills on a larger sheet--11 by 7 inches instead of 4 by 7 inches--using a larger, bolder typeface. Since more information can be printed per page, customers will receive fewer sheets.

The new bills also make it clear when payment is due and when a late charge will be added to any unpaid balance--items that consumers and state regulators have complained were vague in the past.

A major reason for needing increased flexibility in billing stems from the Bell breakup, which left local phone service as a monopoly of regional companies, such as Pacific Bell, while making long-distance service open to competition. The new bills make it easier to understand this distinction, according to Pacific Bell spokesman Doug Cambern.

The first page of the new bills will show the total owed to Pacific Bell as well as any amounts due to long-distance carriers that have arranged with the utility to handle their billing, Cambern said. Subsequent pages carry itemization and explanation of the charges, a separate page for each carrier.

General Telephone, the state’s second-largest local phone company, revised its billing format last April, but chose a strategy opposite Pacific Bell’s, said spokesman Larry Cox. Rather than enlarge the format, General decreased the type size so that more information could be accommodated.

The new format holds down production and postage costs, Cox said, but has generated some complaints about the readability of the small type.