The State - News from June 14, 1985

A consumer group asked the state Public Utilities Commission to revoke its decision to let Pacific Bell and General Telephone shift to residential customers some costs that long-distance telephone carriers pay to use local networks. TURN (Toward Utility Rate Normalization) called the PUC decision “arbitrary and not supported by the evidence.” The PUC ordered Pacific to cut the long-distance carriers’ charges by $140 million initially and to raise that amount from residential customers instead. The PUC also authorized further annual cost shifts from 1986 through 1993, which TURN cited as “another example of how the captive local customer gets gouged in order to keep long-distance rates down.”