Copyright 1999 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune
The Tampa Tribune
December 23, 1999, Thursday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS & FINANCE, Pg. 1
LENGTH: 634 words
HEADLINE:
Baby Bell gets long distance;
BYLINE: A Tribune
staff, wire report;
BODY:
WASHINGTON - The
move is seen as a critical step toward one-stop shopping for telecommunications
services.
Bell Atlantic got approval from federal regulators
Wednesday to offer its own long-distance service to some local customers,
providing a map for other regional phone companies to also become
competitors of AT&T, MCI Worldcom and Sprint.
The company said
it will begin offering long-distance service Jan. 5 in New York state, where it
now is the local phone company for 6.6 million households. Approval of its
plan by the Federal Communications Commission marks the first time since the
court-ordered breakup of AT&T 15 years ago that consumers can get both
local and long-distance service from one of the AT&T spinoffs.
Previously, the FCC has denied five long-distance applications by Baby
Bells since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was
enacted. That law permitted cable television and local and long-distance
phone companies to get into one another's businesses.
Bell Atlantic
invested more than $ 1 billion in tests with New York state regulators to show
that its local phone system was opened fairly to competitors, a
requirement that needs to be met under the law before the FCC can grant
long-distance approval.
FCC Chairman William E. Kennard called the
unanimous decision by the five-member panel a "historic moment for
American consumers."
"We are able to finally declare that the Berlin
Wall of local phone monopoly in New York has been demolished and hauled
away," he said. "The competitive future in local phone service is now on the
doorstep of every citizen in the state of New York."
Industry
analysts predicted New York would be just the beginning, saying that other local
phone companies across the country would also use it as a model for
getting into the lucrative long-distance market.
Bell Atlantic has
agreed to acquire GTE, the dominant local phone company in the Tampa Bay area.
Wednesday's move pushes that merger forward, a spokesman said.
"This just takes another issue off the table," said Bob Varettoni of
Bell Atlantic. "It certainly does facilitate approval."
The
GTE-Bell Atlantic merger still requires approval from California and Ohio, both
expected in January, and from the FCC, expected by the end of March,
Varettoni said.
Bell Atlantic said it hopes to snag 25 percent of the
residential and business customers in the New York long-distance market
within five years with a one-stop shopping plan that includes local,
long-distance and wireless service.
"We will hit this market in a
big way," said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and chief executive officer of
Bell Atlantic, which serves 13 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. "We're ready
to go, and we can't wait to roll out Bell Atlantic long distance, not just
in New York, but all across the Bell Atlantic region."
AT&T
all but promised to appeal the FCC's decision in court, claiming the commission
ignored evidence that Bell Atlantic gives its own orders priority over
competitors.
Consumer advocates who had voiced concerns in the early
part of the process said Bell Atlantic's application had gained strength
in the months since it was filed, partly because AT&T and other
companies had begun promoting their local phone service in New York.
Bell Atlantic said it will soon seek federal approval to offer long-
distance service in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
But consumers in Texas may be the next to get all of their phone
services from the same company. Earlier this month, Southwestern Bell, a
subsidiary of San Antonio-based SBC, got the backing of the Texas Public
Utility Commission to offer long-distance service. Staff writer Cherie
Jacobs Lane contributed to this report.
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