WASHINGTON-The American Association of Retired Persons released the results of a $30,000 study conducted by Economics and Technology Inc. that reports SBC Communications Inc. and Bell Atlantic Corp. did not keep promises made when they merged with Pacific Telesis Corp. and Nynex Corp. respectively in 1997.
“The report focuses on promises made by [Bell Atlantic and SBC] … and whether they kept their promises,” said Christopher A. Baker, project officer at AARP’s Public Policy Institute.
SBC is in the middle of a protracted proceeding at the Federal Communications Commission to complete a merger with Ameritech Corp., and Bell Atlantic has announced its intentions to merge with GTE Corp.
Comments on proposed conditions of the SBC/Ameritech merger are due today and AARP indicated the study will be included in its comments. AARP has consistently opposed the merger but the group’s Jeffrey Kramer said AARP’s comments to be filed today will not necessarily oppose the merger but rather say that “some of the conditions are a good starting point but they need to be modified.”
Both SBC and Ameritech released statements discounting the study with Ameritech saying the national AARP was out of sync with local members. “The national AARP position is completely out of sync with so many of their local members. It’s unfortunate that AARP is also so out of step with all other national and local senior organizations that have taken the time to carefully study industry issues and both companies’ track records. If AARP did so, they would realize that the SBC-Ameritech merger is good for consumers and good for competition,” said Barry Allen, Ameritech executive vice president.
