THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070432
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FRANKLIN LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
When the Rev. Edmund Pickup Jr., a local Episcopal minister, wants to make a long distance telephone call, he leaves his home for the economy of a cellular phone in his car.
Carl Bachmann, a Smithfield businessman, finds it cheaper to hook onto Internet by dialing into his Florida office than by calling long distance from home.
These were among the telephone tales told Wednesday at two public hearings on GTE Corp.'s proposed rate restructuring. About 200 people showed up, at least 60 of them spoke, and many told the State Corporation Commission it should hang up on the plan.
Glenn P. Richardson, the SCC examiner who conducted the hearing, said the GTE proposal has drawn ``unprecedented'' opposition, bringing in about 9,000 letters and petitions with about 23,000 names.
The plan would increase rates in exchange for expanded calling areas for most customers. GTE serves customers in Western Tidewater and parts of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.
The speakers at Franklin High School obviously had done their homework.
Charles B. Settle of Capron said there are 625 telephones in and around the small Southampton County town. For a 63 percent increase in his monthly phone bill, he said, he could call Emporia - about 20 miles away - toll free.
Emporia's 5,200 telephones and Capron's alone would generate more than $400,000 in additional annual revenue for Virginia's second largest phone company, he said.
To get his money's worth, he would have to increase his average of four calls a year to Emporia to 1,395 and stay on the phone about four hours a day. ``I have a few friends in Emporia, but I don't like them that much,'' Settle said.
``We can't afford this scam,'' he said. ``It's not worth a plug nickel.''
However, Northern Isle of Wight residents, especially those around Smithfield, support the plan. So does the Chamber of Commerce and the Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors.
Others at the hearings told of children who can't hook up their computers because of costly long distance rates and an elderly woman who died without calling her friend, three miles away, because she had vowed to make no long distance calls.
Martha Dodd, who lives in Skippers, near Emporia, said she spent more than 20 hours researching GTE before Wednesday's hearings. The company doesn't need the money from a rate increase, she said.
GTE is the 12th largest company in the U.S. in terms of shareholders, more than Ford Motor Co. and McDonald's, she said, and several top executives make about $2 million a year.
GTE says the rate increase is on a statewide basis because it has had no increase in more than a decade.
But, said Dodd, the company increased the price of inside wire maintenance, a ``non-regulated service,'' by 55 cents a month last year.
``They charge me $18 a year for that - and how many million other people?''
The SCC will hold three more public hearings: in Lancaster, March 14; Richmond, March 26; and in Richmond, June 17. No final decision is expected until fall. by CNB