
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994                   TAG: 9407140014
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

COURT SIDES WITH AT&T ON PHONE RATES

Federal regulators generally cannot give long-distance telephone companies competing against AT&T greater leeway to decide what rates to charge customers, the Supreme Court ruled Friday.

By a 5-3 vote, the court struck down a Federal Communications Commission policy that allowed MCI and other long-distance companies - but not AT&T - to offer rates and services not specified in their filings with the commission.

The policy was designed to foster more competition for AT&T, which holds a 60 percent share of the nation's long-distance market. AT&T had successfully challenged it in U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Agreeing with that court, the justices said federal communications law generally does not authorize the FCC to let smaller long-distance telephone companies cut such special deals with customers.

Federal law allows the commission to ``modify any requirement'' of the law. But Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court, ``We think an elimination of the crucial provision of the statute for 40 percent of a major sector of the industry is much too extensive to be considered a `modification.'''

by CNB