THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 28, 1996 TAG: 9608280417
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 53 lines
AT&T Corp.'s plan to provide local telephone service in Virginia has been pushed back to the middle of 1997, three to four months later than initially projected, a company executive said Tuesday.
Bill Stake, a vice president in AT&T's Atlantic states region, said the delay is mainly due to trouble the company has had working out an agreement with Bell Atlantic Corp., Virginia's largest local-service provider. He declined to provide the date on which AT&T now plans to provide the new service.
AT&T and several other aspiring providers of local-exchange services have asked Virginia's State Corporation Commission to arbitrate their differences with Bell Atlantic - and, in some cases, with GTE Corp. as well.
Under rules drafted by the Federal Communications Commission, state regulators have until Dec. 1 to settle the AT&T-Bell Atlantic dispute. They face November deadlines in some of the other Virginia cases.
Meanwhile, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which represents agencies such as Virginia's commission, said Tuesday that it will appeal the guidelines that the FCC is requiring state regulators to follow in ushering in local-exchange competition.
The FCC adopted the rules to carry out a sweeping telecommunications-reform bill signed into law in February by President Clinton. But the utility commissioners' group said the rules don't leave state regulators with enough flexibility to adjust for local conditions.
In Virginia, Stake said AT&T and Bell Atlantic have major differences over such issues as the price his company will pay Bell Atlantic to use its network. AT&T plans initially to re-sell Bell Atlantic's services under its own name and has asked the regional phone company for a wholesale discount of about 40 percent off basic rates. Bell Atlantic has offered a discount of less than 10 percent.
Among other things, the two companies also are at odds over AT&T's demand that Bell Atlantic repair technicians who make service calls on AT&T's behalf leave AT&T customer-service publications behind.
AT&T, the nation's largest provider of long-distance services, was forced out of local phone services in its 1984 breakup that created Bell Atlantic and six other regional Bells. The new federal telecommunications-reform law cleared the way for AT&T to branch back into the local loop.
The same law will allow the seven Baby Bells to jump into the long-distance business - if they satisfy regulators that they have taken the steps necessary to break up their monopolies on local services.
Stake said AT&T is moving as fast as it can to offer local services before other would-be competitors crowd the market. MCI Communications Corp., Sprint Corp. and Cox Communications Inc. are among those also planning to provide local services in Virginia. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other lesser-known companies could follow, operating as resellers.
``Certainly there's a big advantage to being there first,'' Stake said. by CNB