" ‘Litigate, litigate, litigate’ appears to be the ILEC [incumbent local exchange carrier] mantra," said Herda. "The CLEC [competitive local exchange carrier] mantra is to ‘let us compete and we’ll show you how to execute and deliver.’"

Herda was a keynote speaker at the Competitive Telecommunications Association’s Fall Business Conference & Trade Expo here. The sold-out event, attended by more 2,000 registrants, boasted 51 booths and marks the first time that the association has featured trade exhibits at its annual Fall Conference.

Herda’s speech, "There’s Something About CLECs," addressed the fundamental factors that have shaped the competitive telecommunications landscape. The ILECs, Herda said, "have forgotten the fundamentals…The Bell companies sell lots of ‘stuff,’ but they don’t listen to customer’s needs. However, CLECs do."

Herda also announced that a five-year joint operating agreement between Time Warner Telecom and UUNET Technologies. The pact calls for Time Warner Telecom to provide UUNET with virtual points of presence in an initial 20 U.S. markets where Time Warner Telecom has constructed fiber optic networks. The dedicated network will provide UUNET customers with access to 56 kilobit-per-second (kbps) Frame Relay services up to OC-3c (135 megabits per second). These bandwidths support a variety of applications for businesses and institutions of all sizes, including videoconferencing, distance-learning, and bulk file transfer.

Citing the accelerating pace of technological innovation – ranging from IP switching to Dense Wave Digital Multiplexing – Herda advised CLECs to evaluate and deploy these new technologies as they migrate from the TDM circuit-switched world to packet-switching environments. "Our plan is to migrate our networks to IP technologies and to deploy IP switches to replace our circuit switches. This will not happen overnight. We expect our network to be a hybrid in the short term, but then migrate quickly to an all-packet data network," she explained. "As we migrate from the TDM [time division multiplexing] world to the packet world, we are also increasing bandwidth by deploying DWDM systems in our regional networks and for our large bandwidth-eating customers on a local level."

Herda also noted that facilities ownership is crucial to staying competitive "because the bandwidth and transmission bottleneck occurs in the local loop." She called on policymakers to support and preserve the pro-competitive tenets of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, agreeing with CompTel President H. Russell Frisby, Jr.’s opening address that the Bell companies’ efforts to win approval for their Sec. 271 applications to offer in-region long-distance services are premature. "We would be more than happy to support Bell Atlantic and any ILEC to enter the long-distance market if they would allow us to compete on a level playing field for local service. But the truth of the matter is the ILECs have still failed to deliver true competition and therefore are not ready to enter the long-distance market," she said.