SAN FRANCISCO--The Federal Communications Commission is close to creating temporary telephone competition rules that could help AT&T, MCI and others stay in the local phone business, Chairman Michael Powell indicated here Monday.

Powell, in the Bay Area for various tech conferences and for meetings with executives at different wireless companies, said the five FCC commissioners now have a draft of the rules, which they’ll rely on for about six months, until they create a permanent set. «Delivering to the floor,» as Powell put his office’s recent action, is a sign that the FCC’s convoluted policy-making process is quickly nearing an end.

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By Juliana Gittler, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Wednesday, July 14, 2004

IWAKUNI MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, Japan — Under a restricted telephone-calling plan, some station Marines living in barracks pay at least 13 cents a minute to call home using a calling card.

Others, including married Marines, pay half that amount through an unrestricted calling plan that lets them call long distance from their home phones.

The restricted plan keeps long-distance bills in check, especially for junior servicemembers with limited incomes. The base is responsible for any unpaid bills.

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By LARRY MARGASAK
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- First there were misused Pentagon credit cards. Now come misused phones. Investigators say the Navy routinely paid exorbitant telephone bills, wasted calling plan minutes and couldn’t identify who made credit card calls that in some cases lasted for days.

The Navy’s management of phone cards and long-distance plans «creates a fertile environment for fraud, waste and abuse,» the General Accounting Office said in an investigative report obtained by The Associated Press,

The phone problems are the latest revelations to concern members of Congress, who already have heard horror stories about Pentagon employees using government credit cards to make personal purchases at hardware, electronic and lingerie stores, even strip clubs.

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