Judge Wants Curbs Kept on Phone Firms

The federal judge who has overseen the breakup of American Telephone & Telegraph said Friday that lifting antitrust restrictions on the regional Bell telephone companies now would harm consumers and put many small companies out of business.

U.S. District Judge Harold H. Greene, whose decisions have shaped the U.S. telecommunications industry in the wake of the AT&T; divestiture, said Reagan Administration efforts to take enforcement of the consent decree out of his court were “back door” attacks on the nation’s antitrust laws.

In a speech to a Consumer Federation of America conference, Greene said the protections of the decree should remain in place until the Bell companies no longer control the local phone networks.

“These companies continue to have a tight hold on the essential facilities represented by the local telephone switches and circuits, which all of their potential competitors must utilize if they wish to reach the consuming public,” he said.

“We have heard no offers from the telephone companies to give up these local bottlenecks to some third party having no interest in competitive businesses,” he said. “They want both--monopoly and competition.”

Greene approved the antitrust decree that stripped AT&T; of its Bell operating companies four years ago. The decree prohibits the Baby Bells from providing long-distance service and computerized information services and from making phone equipment.

The judge, in a ruling last September, rejected Justice Department recommendations supported by the Bell companies to lift the restrictions, though he allowed the Bells limited entry into information services.

Greene contends that freeing the Bells while they still have a monopoly over the local phone networks would allow them to act anti-competitively, as AT&T; did before it was broken up. In such situations, a company can lower prices to drive competitors out of business and then, without any competition left, raise prices.

The Reagan Administration has been working to challenge Greene’s ruling, saying the judge has too much control over national telecommunications policy and that he is depriving Americans of telecommunications services only the large and profitable Bells are in a position to deliver.

The Administration has been trying to transfer enforcement of the antitrust decree from the federal court to the Federal Communications Commission.