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- 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:
-
- <From {Communications Week}>
-
- 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.
-
- <table of local phoneco promise versus performance on SS7 deployment,
- from {Network World} >
-
- 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
-
- <end of quotes>
-
- 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!
-
-
- WM v2.02/91-0073
- * Origin: AET BBS - (704) 545-7076, 84,000+ Files (6300 megs)(1:379/16)
-
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- Jack Decker jack@myamiga.mixcom.com FidoNet 1:154/8
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