PHONE PACT BENEFITS MOST CUSTOMERS

Early last month, an agreement was reached between Southwestern Bell and the Missouri Public Service Commission that ends years of high-stakes wrangling between the communications company and the state regulators. Throughout the months and years of that wrangling, this newspaper has been sharply critical of Bell's attempts, as a monopoly utility, to escape all regulation while building the much-touted information superhighway with ratepayers' -- rather than investors' -- money. While not everything about the agreement is cause for cheering, many of its aspects are to the benefit of customers.

To summarize major aspects of the agreement:

Touch-tone charges for both home and business customers are cut to 85 cents or less a month. This is a reduction of about $1 a month for home and $3 a month for business customers.

Toll charges for in-state long distance are reduced.

Party lines will be eliminated within 18 months.

The cost of connecting long-distance calls to the local network is reduced.

Customers will receive refunds in the form of credit for the difference between old and new rates for the first nine months of 1994. This credit will be approximately $65 million to consumers. These credits should appear near the end of 1994.

Bell will invest $275 million a year in its network for four years, starting in 1995.

Bell agrees to drop its appeal of a rate cut the commission ordered and to stop petitioning the General Assembly for regulatory relief for the next four years through 1998. In return, also until 1998, the commission will stop its efforts to get the General Assembly to change laws regulating telephone rates.

During the four-year agreement, the commission cannot review Bell's earnings.

Over the legislative session that ended in May, Missourians heard much about connecting the state to the information superhighway. As part of its effort to persuade legislators to pass a deregulation bill, Bell launched a multimillion-dollar media campaign, complete with a grass-roots citizens organization called Connect Missouri.

Whether you supported or opposed Bell's proposal of last spring, it appears that the agreement announced last month has obviated most, if not all, the issues that were then claimed to be at stake. At least, this is what appears to be the case.

For their part, Bell officials are ecstatic. Horace Wilkins, president of Southwestern Bell's Missouri division, says, "Now we can move forward to aggressively complete an advanced network and bring valuable educational and health care services to schools and hospitals."

The regulators sound no less pleased. Public Counsel Martha Hogerty, who fervently opposed Bell's proposed legislation last spring, says the agreement "ensures that Southwestern Bell's rates will now reflect reasonable earnings and eliminate monopoly profits. I am delighted that Southwestern Bell has decided to end its legal maneuvers and perform it public duty to establish a modern network with investor money, not ratepayer money."