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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 18, 1995                   TAG: 9501190030
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

YOU COULD LEARN A LOT BY READING YOUR TELEPHONE BILL

The multipage missive from Bell Atlantic-Virginia is as good a place as any to start because it has so many financial nooks and crannies.

Take the 4-cent charge labeled Interstate Tax Surcharge on the $20.86 AT&T portion of my December bill. Why do I have that?

The answer is simple, said a State Corporation Commission spokesman. It's a "dollar-for-dollar" pass-through of Virginia's tax on AT&T's gross receipts from its business in Virginia. This is one of the few states that has such a tax.

What it means, too, is that AT&T customers are paying its bills.

Another reason to get to know the phone bill is its potential to change. As phone companies expand into cable television, there might be a fee for watching "Gone With the Wind" along with charges for a call to Grandma in Tasmania.

Bell Atlantic this week got the go-ahead to run a market trial of proposed cable television services. The test will start small by delivering movies-on-demand to 2,000 homes in the Fairfax County area.

The company also already has an application with the Federal Communications Commission to start a Video Dial Tone service in the Hampton Roads area, spokesman Paul Miller said.

Movies-on-demand is just one small segment of what Bell Atlantic ultimately has planned for telephone customers. It will roll out 600 channels in Hampton Roads, Miller said. Included will be 20 or so local commercial and public television channels and at least that many special channels such as HBO. The remaining hundreds of channels will be interactive ones that will allow a customer using a remote to do banking or go to the mall.

"At the mall, you might see a dress shop you like, click on it, go in and find something to try on," Miller said.

At some point, a user will be able to program measurements into the computer so she'll know, too, if the dress fits.

How far away is this?

For Roanoke, several years. Richmond also is a second-tier market for the new services.

It will cost from $8 to $10 per month for a household to get what Miller calls the "architecture" for the system. The phone "channels" will come in on a combination of fiber-optic and coaxial cable.

For some time, a Bell Atlantic Corp. subsidiary, Bell Atlantic Video Services Inc., has had a digital production center in Reston digitizing movies for the multichannel television venture. Experts from Universal Studios in Hollywood were hired, Miller said.

As would be expected, the cable television companies also have been busy expanding their horizons. Many expect to get into the telephone business.

Two pieces of legislation dealing with the multiplication of services will be introduced in the General Assembly, Miller said.

A bill sponsored by the Virginia Telephone Association, of which Bell Atlantic is a member, would require cable companies to follow the same rules as telephone companies.

Miller said the second bill, pushed by cable companies, suggests that cable companies should be given more freedom in pursuing new ventures.

One thing for certain, life for consumers is going to get a lot more complicated than choosing among Sprint, MCI and AT&T.