Posted 03/2001
Policy Forum
Briefs
Verizon Communications Inc. (www.verizon.com) is struggling to straighten out its long-distance bid in Massachusetts. The Bell withdrew its bid last December at the FCC (www.fcc.gov) to offer in-region interLATA service in the state and refiled it in mid-January. Verizon executives explained that procedural concerns existed regarding whether all parties have had ample opportunity to evaluate and comment on Verizon's provisioning of nondiscriminatory access to unbundled loops to DSL rivals. Regardless of where Verizon says it's at today on that front, competitive carriers still charge that Verizon hasn't satisfied all the regulatory requirements necessary to begin to provide interLATA service. CLECs also note that Verizon's record of meeting such requirements has been spotty. Verizon nonetheless contends that its Massachusetts application "is the strongest one that any company has filed with the FCC yet," according to Tom Tauke, Verizon's senior vice president of external affairs and public policy.
CLEC lobbying group the Association for Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS, www.alts.org) has claimed that Verizon data shows that Verizon's provisioning of UNEs to CLECs has worsened, even while the incumbent's provisioning to its own retail customers improves. All the FCC graphs drawn from Verizon's Performance Monitoring Reports reveal evidence of its failure to provide CLECs loops and other UNEs and services at parity with its own retail provisioning, according to ALTS General Counsel Jonathan Askin. Following an approval in Massachusetts, Verizon plans to file for 271 authority in Connecticut and then Rhode Island. After that, Verizon said it will make long-distance bids in Pennsylvania, followed by another in New Jersey. Tauke mentioned that the Sec. 271 filings for Pennsylvania and New Jersey most likely would be filed with the FCC in second quarter 2001. And then there's SBC's lingering filings in Kansas and Oklahoma. "It's an onslaught," says one source, "It's a bummer." The FCC has until mid-April to rule on the Verizon application in Massachusetts, but could do it sooner, sources say.
In North Carolina, regulators obviously support curbing unwanted phone calls from unknown callers. The N.C. Utilities Commission (www.ncuc.commerce.state.nc.us) says it's OK for BellSouth Corp. (www.bellsouth.com) to offer its new Privacy Director service, which protects against unwanted callers, including telemarketers. The service now is available to residential customers in Charlotte, Gastonia, the Triangle and the Triad areas of the state. Privacy Director works in conjunction with BellSouth Caller ID. When a person calls from a number that won't show up on Caller ID, Privacy Director answers the call and gives the callers the option of identifying themselves. If they refuse, the phone will not ring at the customer's home. If the callers identify themselves, the phone rings and Privacy Director tells the customer who is calling. The customer then has the option of answering the call, ignoring the call, or sending solicitors a sales reject message.
BellSouth didn't get any warm fuzzies from the Kentucky PSC (www.psc.state.ky.us), when the incumbent was found guilty of providing preferential and discriminatory access to its own Internet operations to the detriment of other ISPs. The PSC's ruling was the result of a November 1999 complaint filed by IgLou Internet Services Inc. (www.iglou.com), a regional ISP based in Louisville, Ky., that charged BellSouth with various marketing abuses and practices that stifled competition. The Kentucky PSC ruled in favor of IgLou and ordered BellSouth to alter its business practices.
