Phone System Competition

One of the hardest things to explain about the telephone industry is how government has systematically overpriced some services just to offer others at subsidized prices--in particular, how the below-cost price of basic residential monthly service has been supported by higher-than-necessary prices for long-distance calling.

The confusion in your Sept. 1 editorial (“Be Savvy on the Dial”) is understandable, because what’s letting long-distance prices fall is both declining costs and a phasing-down of these subsidies--which does increase local phone charges to some extent, since they have been priced below that service’s real cost.

The good news is that fewer subsidies will mean more competition and lower prices still. For example, seven-cent long distance is a good deal--but the actual network cost of such calls is more like a penny a minute, and events like the long-distance entry of the Baby Bells will push those prices down further.

G. MITCHELL WILK

Former President

Public Utilities Commission

San Francisco

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Your Aug. 31 editorial regarding the area code overlay in the 310 area did not remind readers of one of the most interesting points of the whole controversy. There is no technological reason for having to dial 11 digits within the 310 area for local calls. If I understood one of your previous articles correctly, residents of the 310 area are being required to dial 11 digits so as not to provide unfair competition to other companies providing the overlay, which would require 11-digit dialing. Outrageous!

Why should we be inconvenienced in order to make life easier for the companies that are supposed to be competing to make service better for us?

Here’s what I think is really going on: 11-digit dialing is being foisted upon us so that when we call information and hear the recording “for an additional charge I’ll connect you with,” more consumers will opt to pay the charge and be directly connected because they can’t remember the 11 digits!

RICK KRIZMAN

Santa Monica