Competitive carriers want California telecom authorities to require more testing of Pacific Bell's operations support systems (OSS), specifically for processing their change orders. Such a move by state regulators, though, could further delay the regional phone giant's entry into California's $15 billion long-distance market.
Competitors such as AT&T Corp. (www.att.com) have reviewed numerous results from previous OSS tests of Pac Bell, a subsidiary of SBC Communications Inc. (www.sbc.com). They claim there's evidence that Pac Bell's systems continue to favor some orders over others.
During earlier OSS tests, for instance, four mock CLECs were created to process orders through Pac Bell. According to various reports, three had their orders processed without a problem. The fourth competitor, however, which was designed to act like a smaller competitor, consistently had its orders rejected although they did not differ in format.
The competitors say this is "hard factual evidence" that Pacific Bell's systems, which under federal rules are supposed to blindly process orders, actually favor orders from larger carriers. As competitors prepare to file comments in reaction to the test results they plan to ask the California Public Utilities Commission (www.cpuc.ca.gov) to conduct more OSS testing.
Pac Bell said that such problems are due to different processes being used on different days of testing, but that there's absolutely no discrimination in terms of how the orders were processed.
The testing conducted by an independent third party for the California PUC is a critical last step in Pacific Bell's three-year quest to win approval for its application to enter the long-distance market in California. The incumbent must show it has satisfied the Telecom Act's 14-point checklist demonstrating that its local market is open to competition.
Pac Bell said the new complaints from competitors is a last-ditch effort to stall its entry into the state's long-distance market.
The PUC concluded workshops on the OSS tests earlier this month, and plans to issue a final decision on Pac Bell's long-distance application by May 24.
