Regional Phone Firm Curbs Must Remain, Greene Says

The federal judge who has presided over the reorganization of the U.S. telecommunications industry said Friday that strict controls must remain on the seven regional Bell telephone companies because they still are engaging in “anti-competitive” practices.

But Judge Harold H. Greene also said the ruling he issued Monday, granting the so-called Baby Bells inroads into the business of transmitting information services, “greatly relieves restrictions” in that field.

Greene, a Washington district court judge, has overseen the seven Bell companies since they

Chipped at Barriers

As part of the consent decree authorizing the breakup, the seven now-independent phone companies were prohibited from entering the long-distance, equipment manufacturing and information transmission businesses.

The Monday ruling chipped away at those barriers, granting the Baby Bells permission to market such information services as electronic mail, voice messages and pay-per-view television.

But Greene’s decision still bans the phone companies from originating information services, leading some industry officials to characterize the judge’s ruling as restrictive. In other words, the Baby Bells are restricted to transmitting information services provided by other companies only.

Time Hasn’t Come

Greene on Friday likened that restriction to a law that the French enacted to control their national telecommunications industry. The French feared that a telephone company capable of both gathering and transmitting information easily could “take over” the country’s information system, Greene said.

Consequently, France allows its telephone system only “to provide the transmission of data supplied by others . . . which is precisely what my (Monday) decision” did, Greene said.

Greene also voiced strong opposition to letting the Baby Bells enter the long-distance and equipment manufacturing industries.

Those restrictions must continue until “there is no longer any danger . . . that they will act anti-competitively,” Greene said. There has been evidence, he said, “that that time hasn’t come.”