
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 28, 1995                   TAG: 9507280066
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SHORT-DISTANCE CALL MARKET TO OPEN UP

Telephone customers around Virginia soon may have a choice of companies when they make toll calls to places close to home, just as they have now among long-distance carriers.

In a ruling earlier this week, the State Corporation Commission opened Virginia's short-distance toll telephone traffic to competition. The decision, effective Oct. 1, reverses a 10-year-old position by the SCC that only local-exchange telephone companies be allowed to carry toll calls within their immediate geographic areas.

Long-distance companies ATT, MCI, and Sprint have argued before the SCC for a long time that they should be allowed into the short-distance toll market, commission spokesman Ken Schrad said. Other states already allow such competition, he said.

Examples of service that would be opened to competition would be calls between Roanoke and Pulaski or Salem and Staunton, where short-distance toll service has been offered exclusively under state regulations by Bell Atlantic Corp.

Bell Atlantic, which provides local-exchange service in much of Virginia, has some reservations.

Spokesman, Paul Miller said Bell Atlantic is concerned that the SCC will allow long-distance phone companies such as ATT to package their existing long-distance service with the new short-distance service and sell it to companies that are large-volume users of phone service. Because Bell Atlantic and other local-exchange companies are not yet allowed to compete in the long-distance market, the competition from packaged services would be unfair, Miller said.

But the SCC said that forbidding the packaging of services would take away from the consumer benefits that can be obtained by expanding competition for short-distance toll calls.

Bell Atlantic's problem could be solved if Congress were to pass pending legislation that would allow regional telephone companies, such as Bell Atlantic, to compete in the long-distance market. Existing long-distance providers are lobbying heavily against that proposal, however.

The SCC observes that, separate from Congress, the courts are considering lifting restrictions on regional phone companies competing for long-distance service. The commission said it believes allowing competition for short-distance toll calls may hasten the day when restrictions on long-distance competition will be lifted.

Bell Atlantic is not opposed to competition and expected the SCC ruling, Miller said.

Regional telephone companies also may face another form of competition soon within their own local-exchange markets.

A law passed by this year's General Assembly that takes effect Jan. 1 directs the SCC to open up the local-exchange telephone markets to competition from other companies. The SCC is currently writing rules to guide that competition.

by CNB