Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1914 — PHONE RATES ARE UPHELD IN LAFAYETTE [ARTICLE]

PHONE RATES ARE UPHELD IN LAFAYETTE

Can Not Change Price Made to Grain Company Ten Years Ago ' and Still in Force.

The public service commission has given a decision in the case in which the Lafayette Telephone Co. had asked to be permitted to raise its rates for local service to the Crabbs-ReynoMs-Taylor company and the Shadeland Elevator company, both concerns operating neiar Lafayette. Both companies are connected with the Lafayette exchange of the telephone company and for ten years prior to the passage of the public service act, the telephone company has seen fit to serve both companies at a rate of $2.50 per month, on a two-party line. The commission ordered that the rates and agreements in effect January 1, 1913, be not changed, and that the petitioner grant the same privileges to all users of telephone service in the elevator business under the same conditions in its territory. The company had asked that rates on a fiat basis of $5 a month be allowed for telephone service to each company in addition to tolls of 10 cents a message for service from Lafayette to Montmorenci, South Raub, West Point and Odell. The evidence tended to show that the grain company w<as a distinct and peculiar user of telephone service with sufficient toll business to make an agreement of the kind that had been in force desirable and profitable to the compny. The commission took the position that, an agreement as to rates, which had been satisfactory to the telephone company for ten years prior to the passage of the utility law, still would be just and reasonable.