They asked the commission to freeze rates and to overhaul its formula for determining reasonable rates.

Long Island Lighting will seek to freeze electric rates for 1995 and 1996.

Instead, the negotiators who cobbled together California's deregulation plan in 200 hours of marathon meetings agreed to allow the utilities to freeze rates.

In return, New Jersey Bell has agreed to freeze rates through 1999 for the basic telephone services on which the company has a monopoly.

Most companies said they froze rates, extended rentals and allowed one-way trips without an additional charge.

The utility argued that it had frozen rates since 1993 and that when adjusted for inflation they had declined 11 percent.

Earlier, Bell Atlantic had frozen rates for basic phone service; they are now some of the lowest in the country.

Some states have softened the sting to consumers with related measures that freeze or reduce rates.

The plan, which the commission's staff negotiated with Nynex, would slightly lower and then freeze residential rates for up to seven years.

In return, it would freeze rates for five years, beginning in April 1997.