CHICAGO, March
15, 2000 - Ameritech 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 Illinois
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, SBC in
Texas and Pacific Bell in California.
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 Ameritech 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 Ameritech.
"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 Joset Wright, president of
Ameritech Illinois. "This was a collaborative effort
marked by teamwork and cooperation by both companies and
represents the model for how local competition should
evolve in Illinois."
By adopting this process, Allegiance is able to
receive from Ameritech 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, more than 105 CLECs have received state
approval to provide local service in Illinois and 149
are currently under negotiation. In 1999,
Ameritech-Illinois processed more than 267,800 service
orders for CLECs.
Ameritech has provided more than 10 million phone
numbers to CLECs in Illinois. 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.
Allegiance and Ameritech 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 36 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.
Ameritech is the premier provider of communications
services in the Upper Midwest, with nearly 20 million
business and residential customers - more than 22
million access lines - across Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. It is a company of SBC
Communications, Inc. (http://www.sbc.com/), a
global communications leader. Through its subsidiaries -
Southwestern Bell, Ameritech, Pacific Bell, SBC Telecom,
Nevada Bell, SNET and Cellular One - and world-class
network, SBC provides local and long-distance phone
service, wireless and data communications, paging,
high-speed Internet access and messaging, cable and
satellite television, security services and
telecommunications equipment, as well as directory
advertising and publishing. In the United States, the
company currently has 90.4 million voice grade
equivalent lines, 11.2 million wireless customers and is
undertaking a national expansion program that will bring
SBC service to an additional 30 markets.
Internationally, SBC has telecommunications investments
in 23 countries. With more than 204,000 employees, SBC
is the 13th largest employer in the U.S., with annual
revenues that rank it among the largest Fortune 500
companies.
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