Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/back.issues/recent.single.issues/V16_#22

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From [e-mail]  Fri Jan 19 12:41:09 1996
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From: [e-mail] (Patrick A. Townson)
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Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #22

TELECOM Digest     Fri, 19 Jan 96 12:41:30 EST    Volume 16 : Issue 22

Inside This Issue:                          Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Texas Prison Phones (Dallas Morning News via Tad Cook)
    UCLA Short Course on "Advanced Communications" (Bill Goodin)
    Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service (Lee Winson)
    Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service (Javier Henderson)
    US West Spends $1M Providing Substitute Cellular Service (John R. Levine)
    NPR News Story About IDT Internet Services (Lars Poulsen)
    Re: Motorola 550 Cell Phone Problem (Steve Forrette)
    WILDFIRE on DateLine (Steve Cogorno)
    Payphone DTMF Mystery (Peter Clitherow)
    Pacific Bell and Teleport Reach Interconnect Agreement (Mike King)

TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Tad Cook <[e-mail]>
Subject: Texas Prison Phones
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:51:57 PST


Pilot program to allow Texas inmates access to phones
By CHRISTY HOPPE

Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN, Texas -- Inmate access to telephones has led in some states to
scams, credit card abuse, harassment, escape planning, drug dealing
and gang activity.

Regardless, Texas, the last holdout state in the nation, is planning
to let its inmates reach out and touch-tone someone.

Proponents of phones in penitentiaries say that inmates should be
allowed to talk with their families and that new technology prevents
old problems of fraud and abusive calls.

The biggest plus is that it is like dialing for dollars. The
comptroller estimates the state could demand 40 percent of the
long-distance revenues from prison calls -- or $158 million over five
years.

"I don't think you could convince the average Texan that we should
pass up $30 (million) or $40 million a year," Comptroller John Sharp
said.

Prison administrators are not beginning the pilot program on their own
initiative. The legislature this year required that phones be
installed.

Many Texas prison officials hate the idea. So do some victims' rights
groups.  And most Texas Board of Criminal Justice members worry that
the sound of ringing cash registers is obscuring the voices of reason.

"I'm sure the state could make millions of dollars a year by selling
chocolate cakes with metal files baked in them to inmates, but I
wouldn't recommend it," said Allan B. Polunsky, chairman of the
criminal justice board, which oversees state prison, probation and
parole polices.

Polunsky said he is all for generating new revenue, but he believes
much of the money would be eaten up prosecuting new crimes committed
over the phone.

"There are scams that go on today that go on through the mail. So I
can just imagine what they could do with the phones," he said.

Polunsky said telephones are a headache that are not legally required
and not socially needed.

"I'm not sure we need to be providing this kind of service to our
inmates," Polunsky said. "We're not running a hotel; we're running a
penitentiary."

Under current rules, most state prisoners are allowed one supervised
phone call every three months for good behavior.

But under consideration is a system to provide phones in recreational
areas. As envisioned, each inmate would have an access code that would
allow collect calls to a few designated numbers.

The numbers of selected relatives or friends would be approved by
prison officials. All other calls would be blocked, as would attempts
to transfer calls to a third number.

Republican State Sen. J.E. "Buster" Brown sponsored the legislation
that forced prisons to offer the phones or face budget cuts.

In public hearings, he largely dismissed the concerns of naysayers,
defending technology that can determine what numbers are called, how
long the calls last, block transfers and allow officials to record or
listen to any conversation.

He recently could not be reached for comment.

The criminal justice board is scheduled to select a consultant in
January to draw up specifications so that bids can be taken for
equipment, carriers and service for about 20 prisons initially.

While the state oversees more than 100 prison units, the first phones
are slated for state jails -- reserved for nonviolent offenders -- and
for low security units designated for drug treatment.

The number of inmates with access to phones would be about 12,000.

The phone systems in these first units, when operational, are expected
to raise $5 million annually for the state.

Criminal Justice executive director Andy Collins has fought the phone
idea for three years and is less than enthusiastic about the current
project.

"There are security concerns and they have been evidenced all over the
country," Collins said.

Collins fears that inmates using phones could take advantage of
unexpected circumstances to plan escapes -- such as flu depleting the
number of guards for a few days. Such a situation would not be
possible through the mail, he said.

The mail is read, but phone calls are harder to monitor, he pointed
out. If the program expands to the entire prison system, 150,000
inmates will have access to phones.

"You couldn't hire enough people to listen to all those calls,"
Collins said.

Technology provides that the calls can be taped, but Collins said that
only helps after a crime has been committed and does not stop it
before it occurs.

In addition, no mechanical system is perfect, he said.

"If mama has the technology to transfer that call to someplace else,
I've been told privately that what's in place to protect against that
is not fail-safe," Collins said.

In addition, some inmates' families are involved with criminal
enterprises such as gangs or drugs.

"To me, it's penny-wise and pound foolish," Collins said.

A 1990 survey conducted by {Corrections Compendium} magazine showed
that 23 of the 49 states that have inmate-available telephones
reported problems.

Most were inmates using phones to conduct credit card scams, make
harassing or threatening calls, or bypassing safety systems to make
third-party calls.

The survey also showed that at least three states had problems with
families unable to pay phone bills, losing their telephone service, or
being beset by creditors.

Collins pointed out that revenue estimates provide that each inmate
makes at least $40 a month in phone calls -- a price some families
cannot afford.

"When Johnny calls, it's hard for mama not to accept Johnny's phone
calls," Collins said.

Sharp said concerns and problems in other states have not been so
severe or widespread that the phone service has been discontinued.

"Forty-nine other states are doing it. They're making money for their
states," he said. "There's no logical reason it shouldn't work in the
Texas prison system."

Sharp said any program involving inmates is also going to involve problems.

"Nothing is trouble-free," he said. "But I don't think it's too much
to expect that when taxpayers are forking over record money for the
prison system to ask ... (inmates) to pay some of the costs."

Andy Kahan, crime victims coordinator for the Houston mayor's office,
said it is the lack of a trouble-free system that worries him and
other crime victims advocates.

"Anytime you give them access to the outside world, problems develop,"
Kahan said.

He pointed to an incident last year where convicted sex offender Hal
Parfait, during his prison industries job of inputting data, gleaned
private information about one female customer. The inmate wrote an
11-page obscene and threatening letter to her.

"My concern would be this would be another way of access to get to
victims' families, and I don't think they need to be put through the
constant fear of worrying about being contacted, either by the
offender or by his family," Kahan said.

Polunsky said protection of victims is also one of the key concerns of
the criminal justice board.

"At a minimum, they can be harassed if the system is not done
properly, and I'm not sure you can ensure against that possibility,"
he said.

Sharp, however, noted that phones are available in all county jails to
inmates before the are transferred to state prisons. He said such
access has not caused problems.

"It's being done all over the nation. Every sheriff in every county
from each end of Texas is doing it. None of the red herrings hold up,"
he said.

Sharp said his one major concern about a phone system in state prisons
is that prison officials do not want to do it.

"The only way this system will fail is if the prison system makes it
fail," he said.

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Goodin, Bill)
Organization: UCLA Extension
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:48:08 -0800
Subject: UCLA Short Course on Advanced Communications


On April 22-26, 1996, UCLA Extension will present the short course,
"Advanced Communication Systems Using Digital Signal Processing", on
the UCLA campus in Los Angeles.

The instructors are Bernard Sklar, PhD, Communications Engineering
Services, and frederick harris, MS, Professor, Electrical and Computer
Engineering, San Diego State University.

As part of the course materials, each participant receives a copy of
the text, "Digital Communications: Fundamentals and Applications", by
Bernard Sklar.

This course provides comprehensive coverage of advanced digital
communications.  It differs from other communications courses in its
emphasis on applying modern digital signal processing techniques to
the implementation of communication systems.  This makes the course
essential for practitioners in the rapidly changing field.
Error-correction coding, spread spectrum techniques, and
bandwidth-efficient signaling are all discussed in detail.  Basic
digital signaling methods and the newest modulation-with-memory
techniques are presented, along with trellis-coded modulation.

Topics that are covered include: signal processing overview and
baseband transmission; bandpass modulation and demodulation; digital
signal processing tools and technology; non-recursive filters; channel
coding: error detection and correction; defining, designing, and
evaluating systems; signal conditioning; adaptive algorithms for
communication systems; modulation and coding trade-offs and
bandwidth-efficient signaling; and spread spectrum and multiple access
techniques.

The course fee is $1495, which includes the text and extensive course
notes.

For additional information and a complete course description, please
contact Marcus Hennessy at:

[phone]
[phone]  fax
[e-mail]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Lee Winson)
Subject: Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service
Date: 18 Jan 1996 22:48:58 GMT
Organization: PACS IBM SIG BBS


Interesting problem.  But the article didn't clearly state the technical
causes for delays.  That is ...

 Were the delays due to stringing new wire to newly built houses?

 Were the delays to merely "turning on" phone service with a new number
to an existing house?

  Were the delays adding a second line to a house with one line?

  At the phone company -- why did the delays occur?  Insufficient
capacity at a CO to accomodate new subscribers?  Insufficient manpower
to do outside wire stringing?  Bogdown in paperwork processing?

  When NY Telephone suffering serious problems in the 1970s, one cause
was the increased "churning" from customer moves.  In those days of
distributor frames with long jumper wires manually strung each time a
phone line was connected, the frames got overloaded.  Further, things
like cable assignment were all done manually and would bottle neck up.
Lastly, NY Telephone had a lot of employee turnover and the newly
hired employees were slow to pick up job skills.

  I wonder if any of those conditions are the current problems at US
West.  I would assume computerized order processing and ESS offices
would eliminate a lot of problems.

  Anyone know any more details?


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Not So Funny Joke: I always assumed it was
because 'the person who can help you is away from their desk right
now or in a meeting. Do you want me to transfer you to their voice-
mail?'  Either that, or the other common assumption is the company
was secretly sold to some South American telco of whom they are
now a subsidiary, and they have to go by the parent company's time
table for new customer installations.  <grin>   PAT]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Javier Henderson)
Subject: Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service
Date: 18 Jan 96 15:01:01 -0800
Organization: TGV


In article <[e-mail]>, Tad Cook <[e-mail]>
writes:

> Some US West Customers Faced Three Month Wait for Basic Phone
> Service

This belongs in the "and you think that's bad?" category ...

I spent a few days in Montevideo, Uruguay, once, back in January 1983.
Nice, quaint city, capital of the country, with very friendly people.

I remember reading in the phone book, where it lists the information on how to
order service, that your order would be placed in one of three categories:

a. You were a member of law enforcement, doctor, judge, or any other
profession for whom the telephone service was critical.

b. Your order had 20 or more years of waiting.

c. Your order had 10 to 19 years of waiting.

It didn't say whether moving to a new place reset the counter or not ...

I guess if you had been waiting for your phone 9 years or less, you'd
keep on waiting until you entered (c), wait for another ten years, and
enter (b), at which point, if you still wanted telephone service, you
would get it. Or, if you got lucky, the phone company would expand
facilities in your area and you would get service sooner.

"Knowing someone" didn't hurt, either ...


Javier Henderson, VMS Product Support
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 08:50:28 EST
From: John R Levine <[e-mail]>
Subject: US West Spends $1M Providing Substitute Cellular Service


A Knight-Ridder syndicated article reports that US West gave a million
dollars worth of cellular phone vouchers to people to whom they were
unable to provide regular phone service in Colorado.

You qualify for a voucher if you have to wait more than a month for a
phone.  People have routinely been kept waiting two or three months,
and in some cases as much as eight months for service.  Even US West
admits that this is largely due to their poor planning.  They say
they'll have the backlog cleared up by mid-1996 which by a remarkable
coincidence is when local service competition starts.  The problems
seem mostly to be in rapidly growing edges of built up areas.  The
article notes that there's been no problem with power, CATV, water, or
sewer.  It's just US West.

It occurs to me that many if not most of the cellular vouchers are
being used to buy US West's own cellular service, so the true cost to
US West of this band-aid is probably a lot less than the reported
million bucks.  I suppose the cellular is better than nothing, but if
I were the Colorado PUC, I'd have opened up the underserved areas to
competition ages ago.


Regards,

John Levine, [e-mail], Trumansburg NY
Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies"
and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, either that or I would have
insisted that the vouchers be used on the competitor's cellular
service. That might have made them sit up and take notice. Although
John, I am not sure merely opening the door to competition would
help all that much. The competition basically has two choices:
they can either distribute their own cable and wires everywhere,
which would put them in approximatly the same backlog status as
telco, or their other choice is they can lease telco facilities
which leaves them at the mercy of telco anyway.

Do you remember the article here some time ago from the guy in New
York who signed up with some of the competition? I think he went
with Teleport.  Anyway, he wrote in here angrily asking how to
make NYNEX do *their* job where Teleport was concerned so that
Teleport could finish installing what he ordered from them. And
others have written here at one time or another saying the problem
with the competition often turns out to be they are never at their
desk and you have to leave a message in their voicemail. Much of
the problem would seem to be a shortage of outside plant, and I
can't see where it matters if telco installs it or a 'competitor'
does it because you-know-who is ultimatly in control and will be for
the next several years, as far as any of us can see into the future.
All that 'competition' is going to amount to for the next few years
is telco will be working with a lot of wholesale accounts instead of
individual end users. They'll still be boss of course.   PAT]

------------------------------

Subject: NPR News Story About IDT Internet Services
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 96 13:07:45 -0500
From: Lars Poulsen <[e-mail]>


To the editor, NPR "Morning Edition"
(cc: Telecom Digest)

Yesterday's Morning Edition news program had a segment about the
Internet Service Provider (ISP) "IDT", which I found disappointing.
The story lionized the company and its founder/president; I think his
name is Howard Jones. An industry analyst was quoted as comparing him
to "MCI's McGowan when *he* was young, energetic and up-and-coming" or
words to that effect. The comparison may have been apt, but for those
who know the industry's history, it means something quite different
than what was conveyed to the audience.

When MCI was young, it was selling a substandard service with a
promise of great savings, but the promised savings were often based on
incorrect accounting in the price examples presented. For example, MCI
would compare their price for a call from Los Angeles to St Louis
against AT&T's price for the same call, but conveniently forget that
in order to use the MCI service, you would have to pay for a local
(measured business ) call from the subscriber to MCI's Los Angeles
gateway in addition to the MCI charge. When this cost was factored in,
MCIs rates were usually about equal to -- or sometimes even higher
than -- AT&T's rates.

In much the same vein, IDT has been running television ads with the
punchline "always a local call" or "almost always a local call" even
in areas where they have no local access gateway. When asked
specifically for the locations of access gateways, their sales reps
have persevered in promising access via free local calls in many
specific cases where this was not true. Or they have been promising
that a local access gateway would open "in two weeks" when it has
actually taken months before local access became available.

When and where local access has been available, it has often been
severely under the capacity needed to serve the customers they have
signed up, resulting in a busy signal on most calls.

In the program, IDT shrugged off these complaints with a statement
that "people tend to complain about everything: If their friend
doesn't respond to their e-mail, if they read on the internet that
their stock has gone down, they always complain to the internet
service provider". I have no doubt that IDT has a lot of complaining
customers: They deserve it.

There are several problems with IDT. The most serious is that they
have a defective business model. In order to attract the maximum
number of customers, they have priced their service so low that it
cannot generate enough revenue to pay for the equipment needed to
serve the influx of customers. This is especially bad when the service
offers flat rate pricing, rather than a usage based pricing where
higer usage automatically generates the revenue needed to pay for the
equipment to provide the service. As many local "mom-and-pop" Internet
Service Providers demonstrate, it *is* possible to provide high-quality
almost-flat-rate Internet service; it tends to cost $20 to $25 per
month (I pay $25/month for up to 100 hours of connect time). In our
town, we also have a provider who offers "unlimited access for
$10/month" and their service is like IDT's: 75% busy calls, and no
useful customer support.

MecklerMedia maintains a list of ISPs (http://www.thelist.com/). For
a while, they maintained an archive of subscriber comments and
testimonials about various service providers. IDT's customers were
unanimously negative about their service.

To make things worse, IDT is now pushing the "Internet Telephone" fad.
This seems an extremely irresponsible thing for an ISP to do. If this
application takes off, it could bring as much traffic to the Internet as the
World Wide Web, and in return will probably force the telephone companies
and the regulatory agencies to end the availability of free local calls,
or to force the reclassification of ISPs as long-distance telephone
companies. (For more about this issue, read my article at
    http://www.silcom.com/~lars/editorial/telecom.htm
which goes into more detail about the forces that are combining to make
this happen.)

As an engineer working behind the scenes to build the Internet, I
welcome coverage of the Internet, but please, let it be informed
coverage!


Lars Poulsen


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you *very much* for sending that
communication to NPR and for sending a copy here. I am in complete
agreement with you on a couple of points. Back in the early 1970's
I was after MCI repeatedly for their false advertising on their so-
called 'savings' when using their service. I wrote about it on a
couple of occassions in {Telephony Magazine} and I filed an informal
complaint with the Federal Communications Commission which required
MCI to specifically respond to me which up to that point they refused
to do; and which even then they did in a half-hearted, very vague way.

I think they believed people would pay more attention to the coin-rated
portion of their phone bill and somehow ignore or not care about the
message units portion. MCI would demonstrate time and again how the
long-distance portion of your bill -- real dollars and cents expressed
as such -- went down, but they would gloss over or ignore how the
local message units portion which you also had to pay for went up.
They assumed -- and I guess they were correct if their early success
means anything -- that most large companies (and that is all they
really went for; they were cream-skimmers) would notice a reduction
of a few dollars in their long distance bill but would somehow fail
to notice the ten or fifteen percent increase in the number of local
message units each month. If anything was said, MCI's response was
'well how do you know your employees are not making a lot more
personal calls than they used to?' But rare was the manager who would
question why if the company averaged fifty to sixty thousand local
calls per month previously they were now up to seventy or eighty thou-
sand local calls per month. They sure saw that bottom line on the
long distance portion of the bill however; that was 'real money'.
Such was MCI's successful but fraudulent approach in the early days
when to make calls via their network you had to dial a seven digit
local number which supervised and was billed for (or embedded in
the local charges) by the local telco regardless of whether or not
you got an answer or a DA/BY from the distant end.

Now on to IDT for just a moment in this long commentary ... they have
been hitting the market hard here in Chicago also, and your editor
fell for their advertising. Their thing here has been an eighth of a
page ad in the {Chicago Sun Times} on an almost daily basis asking
people to sign up. Their thing here has been to promote 'uncensored
news groups! You can check out the entire net; we don't censor what
you are allowed to see or read' ... with the implication being if you
sign up you can be just as naughty as you please for the mere sum of
ten or fifteen dollars per month flat rate. Now I am not the sort
of person to be naughty -- or if I were, I certainly would not come
out of the closet and say so right here in my own columns! -- but
I had one simple request for them, and if they could meet it, they
could have my business.

"Can you offer me a Unix shell account with rlogin and telnet ability?
If so, I will use your local access number as a dialup to the several
university sites where I have user privileges. If you have good connec-
tivity I may consider operating my Digest from your site."

Simple enough question ... and their answer was *yes*, they did offer
Unix shell accounts, 'but very few people want those, they prefer
to use Netscape or some other surfing tool.'  I told them you give
me the shell account; I'll take care of what clients and front-ends
I need and stuff. It takes them about three weeks, but finally here
comes stuff in the mail for me; my account name, password, phone number
to use for dialup, etc. It is a local (in this area that means an
'A band') call -- just barely -- out of the Chicago-Newcastle central
office, but it works at 9600 baud. The trouble is, as I find out
when I call in, it is not a 'text-based' (as they referred to it)
account. It works exclusively with Netscape, etc.

I call them back, and now the fun begins. They answer their 800 order
line on the first ring. Their custmer service and tech support lines
take longer to get through on. (What else is old news?) *45* minutes
on hold -- but it was their 800 number -- gets me a rep who tells me
'why no, we don't offer Unix shell accounts in the Chicago area. We
do in some parts of the country but not in Chicago; the vendor we
have there does not offer them.' I found out then that what they are
doing is reselling other providers, at least in some markets. I asked
her why then did I have to waste three weeks plus another 45 minutes
to find this out. Her best guess was the salesperson who took my order
must have been misinformed. 'They don't all seem to know that Chicago
is an exception to our usual package and prices. We are giving the
Netscape package there at a cheaper rate because we cannot provide
'text-based' type accounts in Chicago; not with the vendor we have there.'

I said fine, thank you very much and please credit the ten dollars
you quickly charged to my credit card the day I placed the order along
with your start-up fee, etc. Furthermore, please don't force me to
have to challenge a charge every month for the next six months while
you get your act together and cancel my *totally unused* account.

Overall, not a satisfactory thing. They originally promised my 'start
up package' would arrive in seven to ten days; when I called after
ten days (a 20 minute wait on hold that time) I was told it would
arrive arrive any day now and in fact fifteen days after that it did
arrive, only to be totally useless for my requirements.   PAT]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Steve Forrette)
Subject: Re: Motorola 550 Cell Phone Problem
Date: 18 Jan 1996 21:09:11 GMT
Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn


I had a similar problem with mine.  I had lived with it for several
months, because of the expense and inconvenience of having it service.
But, I finally realized that the mechanical stress problem was in the
battery, not the phone itself.  Since the battery was about a year old
and due for replacement anyway, I just got a new one, and the problem
went away completely.  So, my advice is to examine the battery
carefully to see if that's where your problem is.


Steve Forrette, [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Steve Cogorno)
Subject: WILDFIRE on DateLine
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 10:42:38 PST


Did anyone happen to catch the segment on WildFire on Tuesday's
DateLine NBC?  I have used the system before, and it is very nice to
work with (for those who don't know, it is an extended voice mail
service that responds to the user's voice).

My question is that Jane Pauley commented after the taped segment that
the unit costs about $50,000, but the service can be rented. Does
anyone know of a company that provides dialin service using WildFire?
(MyLine folks -- this may be a good opportunity to expand :-)


Thanks!

Steve   [e-mail]


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess I mentioned that the MyLine
software is available for licensing. Call America was/is the first
licensee, but they are not the exclusive providers. I was contacted
a couple weeks ago by a fellow in Boston whose company was considering
starting a MyLine franchise there. I assume if you want, you can
contact them, and if you have the startup cash run a little 800
resale of your own. On a related topic, word came to me that Steve
Betterly, the Call America sales representative most of you who signed
up for MyLine dealt with, has resigned his employment and gone on to a
position better for him with another firm. I'll miss his fine and
efficient service. Jeff Buckingham has not yet announced who will
replace Steve, but assuming the service level remains as good as it
was in the past, I'll probably keep recommending them as the Official
supplier of 800 service to the Digest. Now don't misunderstand: it
is not that their Love Offerings to my purse are any better or worse
than anyone else's ... <g> ... they do have a really great service
available for small to medium size users of 800 numbers.    PAT]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Peter Clitherow)
Subject: Payphone DTMF Mystery
Date: 18 Jan 1996 21:49:16 GMT
Organization: Rural Health Research Center, Family Medicine, UW


I was in LAX airport, and chanced to use an innocuous looking payphone
there (United departure lounge).  Can't recall who owned the thing,
but the default LD carried was ATT.  So, I called up 1800-CALL-ATT to
make my call and was surprised to notice that the tones for successive
identical digits (e.g. 00, 55, and 88) were non-standard and
*different*.  That is, if you push zero twice in succession, you got
different DTMF tones.

Anyone know why this should be the case? I've encountered it before,
and always assumed that it was a sneaky attempt by COCOTs to prevent
access to reasonable LD service.

Further, once the COCOT connected me to ATT, the tones *reverted* to their
normal behaviour!


Peter Clitherow, <[e-mail]> 206-685-0401
Rural Health Research Center, UW, Seattle, 98195.

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Mike King)
Subject: Pacific Bell and Teleport Reach Interconnect Agreement
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 01:09:08 PST


Forwarded FYI to the Digest:

 Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 17:37:34 -0800
 From: [e-mail]

NEWS FROM PACIFIC BELL

Pacific Bell and Teleport Communications Group Reach Interconnect
Agreement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jan. 18, 1996

For More Information:
Pacific Bell:
Jerry Kimata 415-394-3739
[e-mail]

TCG:
Tracy Corrington 718-355-4620
[e-mail]


SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell and Teleport Communications Group (TCG)
announced today the signing of an interconnect agreement that will
enable TCG to offer Californians service in the recently opened local
phone market.

"This agreement is the first reached under new, competitive guidelines
ordered by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Dec.
20, and we're pleased with the outcome," said Lee Bauman, Pacific Bell
vice president-Local Competition.

"It will enable another formidable participant to compete for local
phone customers in California," he said. "This is just the beginning.
In the weeks and months ahead, there will be no doubt that local phone
competition has arrived in California, as competitors rapidly move
into the marketplace.

"We'll be busy negotiating many interconnect agreements with companies
anxious to offer local service," he said. "Phone customers will
benefit because they'll have more choice; more choice in suppliers and
also more choice from Pacific Bell, enabled by greater competitive
flexibility."

"Both companies worked hard at reaching this agreement in a very short
time," said Jim Washington, TCG regional vice president. "I think it
shows how eager TCG is to bring our services to California consumers
and expand competition into the local exchange market, as well as
Pacific Bell's determination to fulfill its role of facilitating that
competition.  California consumers are clearly the winners," he said.

The agreement lays out the terms and conditions for interconnection
of the companies* networks by two-way trunks.  Either company's
trunks may be used.

Unlike other arrangements, such as the resale of local service or the
lease of local links, TCG will use its own facilities to sign up and
serve local phone customers.  The interconnection with Pacific Bell
will be made to complete calls to Pacific Bell's customers.

Completing local calls on each others' networks will not be
compensated and will be handled on a 'bill-and-keep' basis.  Local
toll calls completed by either company will be compensated at
existing switched rates.

Term of the agreement is one year, with automatic renewal unless
canceled by either side after March 1, 1997.  The local phone market
was opened to competition on Jan. 1.  Resale of local service for
companies without their own network facilities will occur on March 1.

TCG is the nation*s largest competitive local exchange carrier, with
networks in 47 U.S. markets.

Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified
telecommunications corporation headquartered in San Francisco.

                    ----------------

Mike King   *   [e-mail]   *   Oakland, CA, USA   *   +1 510.645.3152

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest V16 #22
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