The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday it supports a bid by AT&T Inc to waive rules which require the company to provide information on its costs to regulators.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he had approved the petition submitted by AT&T, which asked for the rule to be waived, and called the rule decades-old regulations that don't make as much sense anymore.

Martin said AT&T has estimated it costs $10 million a year for the company to abide to the rule.

I think it's important for us to try to respond to deregulatory efforts that would save the companies a significant amount of revenue, and particularly for rules and regulations that are no longer required..., Martin said.

Under the rules, AT&T said it had to maintain a vast system to break down and report costs ranging from office space, to employees, to company transactions, including a system of codes and a manual more than 100 pages long.

AT&T says the regulations represent an era when the company was a monopoly and the rates it charged were based on costs, but it now operates in a competitive marketplace.

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