From: Jack@myamiga.mixcom.com (Jack Decker) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Phonecos Renege on "Deal" Organization: TELECOM Digest [The following message originated in the Fidonet FCC echomail conference:] Original From: Don Kimberlin Subject: Phonecos Renege on "Deal" Here's another way the local phonecos are failing to meet their often ballyhooed "service to the public," "natural monopoly" and "all things to all people" profile they like to put forth. Now, after making a committment to the FCC that they understood all the requirements (after all, they ARE the only real "experts," aren't they?) and committed to the FCC that they could participate in "800 number portability" by April, 1993, the local phonecos are `fessing up that they won't have SS7 installed adequately to accomplish it. One, good old Southwestern Bell, who was always one of Ma Bell's nastier children, has even sued the FCC at this late date, trying to get the court to tell the FCC it can't tell a local phoneco how to run its business! Here's a story quoted from two trade journal sources: TELCOS ASK FOR SS7 ROLLOUT DELAY By: Kathleen Killette "Local telephone companies last week remained strongly at odds with the biggest customers -- and users and long distance carriers -- about how quicly they should be required to roll out Signaling System 7 networks and associated databases for routing "800" - number traffic. "In filings with the FCC last week, several telcos said it will be too expensive and too technically difficult to comply with the agency's March, 1993 deadline for SS7 deployment and implementation of the 800-number databases. "But user advocates say those claims are exagerrated. `Telco had full input into the negotiations that led up to the FCC's adoption of the rules, and their whining is now inappropriate,' said Henry Levine, a partner in the law firm of Morrison & Foerster and counsel to Mastercard International and other large financial institutions. "The SS7 networks will support databases for screening and routing 800-number calls to the proper interexchange carriers -- called 800-number portability -- which is expected to shorten the time it takes to set up calls and which will let users retain their 800 numbers when they switch long-distance carriers. "Number portability is also crucial to carriers who face intensifying competition for business users. AT&T, which the FCC believes still has the lion's share of the 800-number market, is forbidden to provide 800-number service as an integrated component of its customized Tariff 12 network services until telcos provide number portability. "The databases, according to the FCC, should enable telcos to cut their access call setup times to five seconds or less for 97 percent of 800-number traffic. By MArch, 1995, the telcos must achieve a maximum access time of five seconds for 100 percent of their 800 traffic, with a mean time of 2.5 seconds. "In reports filed with the FCC last week, telcos reiterated their claims that there are significant costs to comply with the deadlines, and that variations in their switching equipment within their territories were not taken into account when preliminary call setup estimates were issued by the Industry Carriers Compatibility Forum." (Well, whose fault is _that_? -- God's?) "San Francisco-based Pacific Telesis Group and several other telcos have asked the FCC to waive its rules, and St. Louis-based Southwestern Bell Corp. has challenged the FCC's rules in court. "But Levine dismissed telcos' worries about equipment variations and cost burdens. `The call setup variations due to [switch] inconsistencies are measurable in hundredths of a second; that doesn't justify the magnitude of the changes now being requested,' he said. TRAFFIC PERCENTAGE TO MEET FCC REQUIREMENTS FCC Plan 1993 97% 1995 100% Ameritech 1993 74% 1995 96% Bell Atlantic 1993 85% 1995 100% BellSouth Corp, 1993 93% 1995 98% GTE Telephone Operations 1993 90% 1995 100% Nynex Corp. 1993 92% 1995 98% Pacific Telesis Group 1993 84% 1995 98% Southwestern Bell Corp. 1993 72% 1995 95% USWest, Inc. 1993 64% 1995 no committment So, on yet another front, you now know, in Paul Harvey's style, yet another part of "The Rest of the Story." Remember that when your phoneco next propagandizes you with how well they are taking care of your interests!