San Francisco, Calif., November 5, 1999 - Pacific
Bell and Allegiance Telecom, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALGX) today
announced that they have completed the electronic
bonding between their operations support systems (OSS),
reducing the time required to process customer orders
for local service requests. The bonding between their
systems makes it easier for California businesses to
switch from one local service provider to another. This
accomplishment builds on Allegiance's previously
successful electronic bonding of OSS with Bell Atlantic
in New York and Massachusetts and with SBC in Texas.
Electronic bonding enables computers at different
phone companies to communicate with each other in
real-time, providing for rapid sharing of customer
information, service requests and other data.
"The lack of electronic bonding between
facilities-based local carriers has been widely
recognized as the principal bottleneck in realizing the
competitive local service marketplace envisioned by the
Telecommunications Act of 1996," said Royce Holland,
chairman and chief executive officer of Allegiance
Telecom. "Today's announcement with Pacific Bell is
another major step toward reaching our goal of
implementing electronic bonding with all incumbent local
phone providers."
Currently, many competitive local exchange carriers
(CLECs) have unique or one-of-a-kind electronic systems
that may not adhere to industry standards. Therefore,
some CLECs depend upon faxing customer orders to the
incumbent local telephone company, which then must
manually input this information into their systems for
processing. Allegiance, however, developed its
electronic interfaces to conform with industry
standards, as did Pacific Bell.
"This cooperation and efficiency is an excellent
example of what can be accomplished when a CLEC and
incumbent local provider cooperatively use their
energies and resources," said Debbie Barba, vice
president, local wholesale operations at Pacific Bell.
"This was a collaborative effort marked by teamwork and
cooperation by both companies. It could very well be the
model for how local competition should evolve in
California."
By adopting this process, Allegiance is able to
receive from Pacific Bell a "firm order commitment" -
confirmation that an order has been received - much more
rapidly. Using electronic interfaces, this confirmation
is typically sent within six hours, and on many
occasions, it is sent almost instantaneously. Using the
manual system, it took approximately 24 hours on average
to complete this step.
To date, over 202 CLECs have received state approval
to provide local service in California and 69 CLECs have
passed orders to Pacific Bell. Pacific Bell continues to
move aggressively to open all of its markets to
competition. It is estimated that over 1.8 million
competitive lines are currently served by these CLECs.
Electronic bonding will significantly increase the
volume of customers that can be switched to Allegiance
service each month and help eliminate opportunities for
service interruptions during the switching of a
customer's service from one local provider to another.
The two companies were able to establish electronic
bonding between their systems in record time, moving
from process initiation to limited production within 90
days. Allegiance and Pacific Bell hope their success
will serve as a template for the industry and encourage
other incumbent local exchange companies and CLECs to
institute the same process. Electronic bonding is a
non-proprietary architecture that is fully available to
any local provider.
Allegiance Telecom (http://www.allegiancetele.com/)
is a facilities-based local exchange carrier
headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Allegiance offers
businesses a complete package of telecommunications
services, including local, long distance, international
calling, high-speed data transmission and Internet
services. Allegiance is targeting 24 major metropolitan
areas in the U.S. with its "one-stop shopping" approach.
Allegiance's common stock is traded on the Nasdaq
National Market under the symbol ALGX.
Pacific Bell provides basic and leading-edge
telephone services and products to over 15.3 million
business and residential customers - a total of more
than 18.2 million access lines - throughout California.
Pacific Bell is a company of SBC Communications Inc. (http://www.sbc.com/), a
global leader in the telecommunications industry with 52
million voice grade equivalent lines and 8.3 million
wireless customers across the United States, as well as
investments in telecommunications businesses in nine
foreign countries. Under the Southwestern Bell, Pacific
Bell, SNET, Nevada Bell and Cellular One brands, SBC,
through its subsidiaries, offers a wide range of
innovative services. SBC offers local and long-distance
telephone service, wireless communications, data
communications, paging, Internet access, and messaging,
as well as telecommunications equipment, and directory
advertising and publishing. SBC has more than 130,000
employees and its annual revenues rank it in the top 50
among Fortune 500 companies.
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