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             California Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Avenue, Room 5301            San Francisco, CA 94102
CONTACT: Dianne Dienstein             November 8, 1995  CPUC - 96
         415-703-2423                               (A.94-01-011)

      CPUC APPROVES DUCOR TELEPHONE SERVING KENNEDY MEADOWS

    The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today
approved Ducor Telephone Company's plan to provide phone service
to Kennedy Meadows in Tulare County.  For the first time, the 165
homes and businesses in the remote mountain community and
thousands of recreation visitors to the area will be able to
communicate easily by phone to emergency services, relatives,
friends, businesses, and government.
    A few communities in California, such as Kennedy Meadows,
don't have phone service because they are in rural or mountainous
areas with few residents.  Providing service to those areas is
very expensive compared to providing service to urban areas with
many phone users.  Currently, Kennedy Meadows residents have to
drive 35 miles to use a pay phone in Pearsonville.  Even a
cellular phone user must drive 10 miles out of town to make a
call, and connection isn't reliable.
    Ducor will spend $1.6 million to build the underground line
and microwave transmission facilities needed for service in the
area and service is expected to be available by 1997. The
Commission finds that Ducor's system design is reliable and the
most economical for the remote, mountainous Kennedy Meadows area.
The CPUC also completed an environmental impact review as
required by the California Environmental Quality Act and found no
negative impact on the environment.  The Ducor investment will
stimulate the local economy bringing more jobs, economic activity
and tax revenue to Kennedy Meadows and nearby areas as well as to
the state.
                            - more -
    Ducor serves 721 customers in south central California and
Rancho Tehama in northern California.  It will finance
construction of the facilities to serve Kennedy Meadows with a
loan from the Rural Utility Service and Rural Telephone Bank
which it will repay with 5 percent interest over a period of 30
years.
    The Commission has a long-standing commitment to universal
service - telephone service at reasonable rates to every
Californian regardless of income or location.  How universal
service will be funded when competition in local phone service
begins in 1996 is a key issue the Commission is now trying to
resolve with input from the public received at 13 hearings it has
held throughout the state.  Currently, universal service is
funded from pools paid into by all phone companies and drawn from
according to each phone company's need.  Thus, small phone
companies serving areas which cost more to serve are subsidized
for doing so.  Ducor contends that the new Kennedy Meadows
exchange will cost the state's phone ratepayers no more than they
already pay to support universal service.

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