BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Despite a recent rash of consumer complaints in northern Louisiana and around Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Public Service Commission refused to threaten AT&T Inc. with a potential $175,000 fine for service problems.

On a 3-2 vote Wednesday, the commission instead decided to study whether to impose AT&T's service benchmarks on all telephone companies operating in Louisiana. Although telecommunications has long been deregulated – with competition setting prices instead of regulators – landline telephone providers still require a state certificate to operate.

The commission adopted service standards for San Antonio-based AT&T as part of its approval in 2006 to allow the company to acquire BellSouth Corp. The standards do not apply to other services, such as cellular telephones and broadband Internet, over which state regulators have no authority.

A year ago, the PSC pulled back the threatened fine – intended to force AT&T to improve service quality for its standard telephone service – to study whether all phone companies should meet the same benchmarks, including such factors as the time it takes AT&T to offer an installation appointment, whether the appointment is kept, duration of service interruptions and the percentage of problems fixed within 24 hours.

Commissioner Jimmy Field, who represents the Baton Rouge area, said his office had been swarmed with consumers complaining about the length of time to get service installed and outages lasting more than 24 hours. Field wanted the PSC to hang the fine over AT&T's head again.

"If AT&T will tend to their business, they won't face a fine," Field said.

According to AT&T, the company owns about 62 percent of the standard landlines in Louisiana and garners about half of the customers in the state's major metro areas. Field said the threatened fine was needed because AT&T is a "legacy carrier" that controls a great deal of the market.

Commissioner Foster Campbell, who represents northern Louisiana, said he was "worn out" from fielding calls from constituents complaining about AT&T. He said that because of AT&T's size, "they owe special service to the state of Louisiana."

But Commissioner Erick Skrmetta said his district, located north of Lake Pontchartrain, had produced few complaints about AT&T’s service, while the company's competitors produced many. He said it would be unfair to penalize AT&T when other telephone providers don't face the same standards.

"It has to be uniform across the state," Skrmetta said.

The commission decided to resume studying the issue of uniform standards – and potential fines – for all providers before turning down Field's motion to reinstate the threatened fine. Campbell voted with Field. Skrmetta, PSC chairman Lambert Boissiere and Commissioner Clyde Holloway voted against the move.