Decontrol Local Phone Service, FCC Head Says

Saying it is time to go “back to the future,” the head of the Federal Communications Commission called today for the eventual deregulation of local telephone service.

Mark Fowler, addressing a convention of communications network users, proposed testing an “open architecture” plan and other changes that would open up the local phone marketplace, but doing it under close public scrutiny, unlike the sudden, court-supervised breakup of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co.

“I’d like to see at least a three-year trial, I hope before the end of the decade,” Fowler said, adding that the deregulation plan would not represent abdication of FCC responsibility.

Although Americans still are adjusting to the upheaval in long-distance telephone service following the Bell System divestiture Jan. 1, 1984, Fowler said it is not too soon to consider full competition in the local arena--a concept virtually guaranteed to draw protest from Congress.

‘Time Has Come’

“Unless we in government, including the courts, retard or kill its potential, telecommunications should become an almost completely competitive marketplace,” he said. “Time has come for a national debate including the legislative and executive branches over introduction of this program.”

The FCC would have limited authority over such a restructuring. The authorization would have to come from state lawmakers, public utility commissions and the Congress.

At a news conference following the speech titled “Back to the Future,” Fowler said some states, including Colorado, Idaho and Iowa, have already considered partially deregulating phone service within their borders.

And Fowler noted that if an individual state or geographic region elected to try out his deregulation plan, the FCC and that state or region could conduct such a test without permission from Congress or the courts.