AT&T agrees to lower rates to amend for overbilling

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) said Monday that her office has reached an agreement with AT&T's Illinois subsidiary, under which some Illinois phone customers who were over-billed will receive -- in addition to $1.5 million in refunds they have already garnered -- an additional $5.5 million in future rate concessions through November 2011. Madigan's office said it had last year detected billing errors on certain rate packages, known as Consumers Choice Basic and Consumers Choice Extra formats. The Illinois Commerce Commission had mandated rate reductions on those packages, but AT&T had not implemented the reductions. As part of the agreement, AT&T Illinois also agreed to $5.5 million in future rate concessions. In one element of those concessions, the AT&T unit will forgo the last of three rate hikes that the ICC has previously authorized, which was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2009. AT&T Illinois will also freeze the current 4 cents per local call rate for 18 months, providing a savings to customers who pay basic per-call rates an estimated $4 million through July 1, 2010. In addition, AT&T Illinois has agreed to cap the "Consumers Choice" packages for another year. The ICC approved those packages to protect consumers from expected price increases resulting from deregulation and AT&T Illinois will retain those low-priced, bare-bones packages through November of 2011, "saving consumers another $1 million."