For several months I’ve been agonizing over whether to buy 75 shares of AT&T for my IRA. I know you recommended the stock last year at $28, but it’s 10 points higher now, and I can’t decide if the price is too high, or if it can move higher. My next question concerns the $6.50 FCC Authorized Charge for Network Access. I’ve been paying this fee for years now, and it is 25 percent of my monthly bill. When will this tax go away?

Dear T.S.:

I really like AT&T Inc. (T-$40.10) and believe it has excellent appeal as both a short-term and long-term investment. AT&T, with a generous $1.42 dividend that is almost certain to be raised next year, might be a superb choice for investors who are seeking shelter from the current market volatility. AT&T is the largest land-line phone company in the United States as well as the largest wireless company (formerly Cingular Wireless), with the deepest spectrum portfolio of any carrier in the nation’s largest markets.

Of course, AT&T’s recent agreement with Apple and its revolutionary iPhone gives T an impressive edge in its brutal battle with Verizon over market share. And T’s $85 billion purchase of BellSouth Corp. will add about $45 billion to revenues as well as impressive synergies that could exceed $5 billion annually by the end of the decade.

Management expects net profit margins, which will be 13.5 percent this year, to increase to an impressive 19 percent in the coming four to five years. No other phone company comes close to this brutal efficiency. Verizon’s net profit margin is expected to be 8.6 percent in the same time.

In the next four years, Wall Street analysts believe T’s per-share earnings will grow by 50 percent to $3.90 and the company’s dividend will grow 40 percent to $1.85.

T’s Internet service is the largest in the United States, one-third of its 50 million residential customers subscribe to this service, and the company’s directory publishing business generates enormous cash flow and is conservatively valued at $20 billion.

I can also tell you that T’s network upgrade plans and its good relationships with residential and business customers enable it to offer better service and more options without the need for expensive capital. What’s more, T is gaining significant advantages in the huge broadband market.

I’m going to suggest that you stop dilly-dallying and buy 75 shares of T for your IRA right now.

I believe that AT&T should be a core issue in every serious long-term growth portfolio. Its dandy dividend yields a swell 3.8 percent, and in the next four to five years AT&T shares could trade in the high $60s to low $70s.

Several years ago I wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to inquire about the monthly $6.50 Authorized Charge for Network Access. I got some answers, but they were pure palaver and didn’t make a whit of sense to me.

The FCC Authorized Charge for Network Access allows T to “recover costs associated with connecting to a telecommunications service provi-der’s interstate network.” Well, at $6.50 a month per land-line times 50 million land-lines, the surcharge totals a whopping $325 million each month. That comes to nearly $4 billion a year, which is 25 percent of T’s expected net profit for 2007.