[HaBi 1]    Ammo

Ammo Glancing through the back issues of the NY TIMES from January 1971 to the present has unearthed enough worms in Ma Bell's earth to plant a million seeds of rebellion. Among the strong points in favor of our arguments that Ma Bell has been a major force in moving this country towards inflation is the fact that AT&T decided to raise the rates for TV program transmission. The rate increase affected all the TV networks. The rise in rates was passed on by the network corporations to the station's commerical sponsors. In many cases the sponsors passed the rate increase on to the consumers. Not only did commerical time cost more, but there was also a noticable increase in the amount of commericals on the network programs. FTC commissioner Jones replied, "TV commericals tend to suggest that use of the advertised product will solve listeners problems and fulfill their ambitions. I see no need to regulate. Question of the month, has AT&T collected that 1.15 million dollar phone bill owed by the Democratic party since the 1968 convention?... The following are phone facts as reported to the NY TIMES ... Directory assistance service in 1970 reached 497 million, estimates for 1980 are placed at 840 million... Did you know that Ma Bell will soon be charging by the message unit all calls placed to information ? AT&T now says the reason for charging for info calls is to drop the work force by 8% (about 8000 people) to meet the rising costs (sic !)... J. Billingsley, a Bell rep, says the phone company is not hiring to reduce the work force... AT&T spent 7.6 Billion dollars on new facilities in 1972... Last year the NYC PSC ordered NY TEL to pay 1.50 monthly rebate to worst service. The company estimated total rebate paid at 15 million annually... FTC study of America's 20 largest cities finds service in Bklyn ranking LAST! ... NY TEL, otherwise known as NY MA BELL, holds 23 million dollars in deposits for its customers, yet only has 20 million in debts. This practice goes on in many places around the country... and there has been a growing number of complaints againist the high deposit rates ... A US Senate sub-committee on intergov't relations reported that the Pentagon was willing to provide auditors needed by the FCC to carry out its investigation of AT&T rate structures. It seems that every time there is going to be a rate increase the FCC turns its back and uses the excuse that they do not have sufficient money and manpower to investigate. (It's rapidly becoming a trite cliche)... Now, a few months later we pick up the NY TIMES and read a article dated July 22, which states that the Pentagon's telephone bill went up by 4.7 million dollars a year. The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Kompany won the increase Nov. 17 from the Virginia CC, but federal officals obtained a restraining order preventing it from taking effect. The federals argued that the rate increase violated the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution. However, the panel ruled that the supremacy clause was not violated because there was no evidence that the state of Virginia was attempting to restrict the operations of the Federal gov't. The Pentagon, which is situated in Virginia across the Potomac River from Washington now must pay a long distance rate for all calls going into the capital.

[HaBi 1]    Ammo