In July, AT&T will begin charging its 80 million residential customers a fee to pay for universal-service telecommunications discounts for libraries and schools. Customers will be assessed 5% of total monthly charges for interstate and international long-distance calls, and 1.8% of monthly charges for in-state long-distance, said AT&T spokesman Jim McGann.
Since January, AT&T has charged business customers 4.9% of their monthly long-distance bills to support the programs, reported the Associated Press. "We've been signaling for some time now that we would apply a similar charge to residential customers,'' McGann said. "We can't eat these costs." McGann estimates AT&T share of the program's costs as $1.6 billion for 1998.
MCI was also reportedly preparing to file notice that it would begin imposing the fee in July.
Gene Kimmelman, codirector of the Washington Office of the Consumers Union, which opposes the fee, predicted other phone companies would follow suit.
Posted June 1, 1998.