From: Jack@myamiga.mixcom.com (Jack Decker)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Phonecos Renege on "Deal"
Organization: TELECOM Digest

[The following message originated in the Fidonet FCC echomail conference:]

 Original From: Don Kimberlin
       Subject: Phonecos Renege on "Deal"

Here's another way the local phonecos are failing to meet their often
ballyhooed "service to the public," "natural monopoly" and "all things
to all people" profile they like to put forth.

Now, after making a committment to the FCC that they understood all
the requirements (after all, they ARE the only real "experts," aren't
they?) and committed to the FCC that they could participate in "800
number portability" by April, 1993, the local phonecos are `fessing up
that they won't have SS7 installed adequately to accomplish it.  One,
good old Southwestern Bell, who was always one of Ma Bell's nastier
children, has even sued the FCC at this late date, trying to get the
court to tell the FCC it can't tell a local phoneco how to run its
business!  Here's a story quoted from two trade journal sources:

<From {Communications Week}> 

                     TELCOS ASK FOR SS7 ROLLOUT DELAY 
                           By: Kathleen Killette 

        "Local telephone companies last week remained strongly at odds
with the biggest customers -- and users and long distance carriers --
about how quicly they should be required to roll out Signaling System
7 networks and associated databases for routing "800" - number
traffic.

        "In filings with the FCC last week, several telcos said it
will be too expensive and too technically difficult to comply with the
agency's March, 1993 deadline for SS7 deployment and implementation of
the 800-number databases.

        "But user advocates say those claims are exagerrated.  `Telco
had full input into the negotiations that led up to the FCC's adoption
of the rules, and their whining is now inappropriate,' said Henry
Levine, a partner in the law firm of Morrison & Foerster and counsel
to Mastercard International and other large financial institutions.

        "The SS7 networks will support databases for screening and
routing 800-number calls to the proper interexchange carriers --
called 800-number portability -- which is expected to shorten the time
it takes to set up calls and which will let users retain their 800
numbers when they switch long-distance carriers.

        "Number portability is also crucial to carriers who face
intensifying competition for business users.  AT&T, which the FCC
believes still has the lion's share of the 800-number market, is
forbidden to provide 800-number service as an integrated component of
its customized Tariff 12 network services until telcos provide number
portability.

        "The databases, according to the FCC, should enable telcos to
cut their access call setup times to five seconds or less for 97
percent of 800-number traffic.  By MArch, 1995, the telcos must
achieve a maximum access time of five seconds for 100 percent of their
800 traffic, with a mean time of 2.5 seconds.

        "In reports filed with the FCC last week, telcos reiterated
their claims that there are significant costs to comply with the
deadlines, and that variations in their switching equipment within
their territories were not taken into account when preliminary call
setup estimates were issued by the Industry Carriers Compatibility
Forum."  (Well, whose fault is _that_? -- God's?)

        "San Francisco-based Pacific Telesis Group and several other
telcos have asked the FCC to waive its rules, and St. Louis-based
Southwestern Bell Corp. has challenged the FCC's rules in court.

        "But Levine dismissed telcos' worries about equipment
variations and cost burdens.  `The call setup variations due to
[switch] inconsistencies are measurable in hundredths of a second;
that doesn't justify the magnitude of the changes now being
requested,' he said.

<table of local phoneco promise versus performance on SS7 deployment,
from {Network World} >

                TRAFFIC PERCENTAGE TO MEET FCC REQUIREMENTS 

FCC Plan 
1993    97% 
1995   100% 

Ameritech 
1993    74% 
1995    96% 

Bell Atlantic 
1993    85% 
1995   100% 

BellSouth Corp, 
1993    93% 
1995    98% 

GTE Telephone Operations 
1993    90% 
1995   100% 

Nynex Corp. 
1993    92% 
1995    98% 

Pacific Telesis Group 
1993    84% 
1995    98% 

Southwestern Bell Corp. 
1993    72% 
1995    95% 

USWest, Inc. 
1993    64% 
1995    no committment 

<end of quotes> 

So, on yet another front, you now know, in Paul Harvey's style, yet
another part of "The Rest of the Story."  Remember that when your
phoneco next propagandizes you with how well they are taking care of
your interests!


WM v2.02/91-0073 
* Origin: AET BBS - (704) 545-7076, 84,000+ Files (6300 megs)(1:379/16) 

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

Jack Decker   jack@myamiga.mixcom.com    FidoNet 1:154/8

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