Fcc Chief Contends Callers Overcharged

The nation’s top three long-distance companies appear to be overcharging telephone customers and blaming it on new federal fees, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday.

The chairman, Bill Kennard, contends that the new fees were supposed to be offset by commission-ordered reductions in other fees long-distance companies pay.

But it doesn’t appear that the companies have passed along some $1 billion in reductions to their customers as they pledged, Kennard said. “They have yet to show me that consumers got the promised savings,” he said.

AT&T, MCI and Sprint say they have passed along those reductions and disputed Kennard’s suggestion that they may be overcharging customers.

The FCC sent letters to the chiefs of AT&T, MCI and Sprint Thursday, demanding that they turn over detailed rate information and “show us how they shared their lower costs with their consumers,” Kennard said.