ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050063
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
A small telephone company serving parts of Botetourt County hopes to expand and within a year provide local phone service in the entire Roanoke Valley and part of the New River Valley.
R&B Network, a subsidiary of R&B Communications of Daleville, filed an application with the State Corporation Commission this week, seeking permission to offer the service in an area that includes Roanoke, Salem, Vinton, Blue Ridge, Buchanan, Blacksburg, Radford and Christiansburg.
The Virginia General Assembly in January opened local phone service in the state to competition, and Congress made competitive local phone service the rule nationwide in the Telecommunications Act that it passed early this year.
Already in 1996, the SCC has given six companies - including AT&T, a traditional long-distance service provider, and Cox Communications, a cable television company - permission to offer local phone service in all or parts of Virginia. They would compete with traditional local phone service providers such as Bell Atlantic and smaller companies, such as R&B Communications.
Another 11 applications to provide service, including R&B's, are pending before state regulators.
"We might as well go to the party as long as everyone else is," said Allen Layman, R&B's president and chief executive officer. "We didn't plan the party; we just want to go."
Layman said his company's goal is to become a full-service telecommunications provider in and around the Roanoke and New River valleys.
R&B already provides paging, cellular phone service, voice mail, Internet access and wireless cable television services. By next fall, the company - in conjunction with CFW Communications Inc. of Waynesboro - also plans to begin providing personal communications services, a new digital wireless phone service that uses lower-powered and smaller phones, Layman said.
The only portion of the Roanoke metro area where the company doesn't plan to offer local service is the Iron Gate section of Botetourt County. Layman said that area is served by CFW, a company that R&B cooperates with in various business ventures.
His company has an advantage over other potential competitors for Bell Atlantic's local phone business in Roanoke and Montgomery counties because it already has a switching system in place at Troutville and fiber-optic cable installed in both counties, Layman said. The rest of the equipment it will need, including lines into customers' homes and businesses would be rented from Bell Atlantic.
R&B will have to negotiate an interconnection agreement with Bell Atlantic before it can begin offering the services. Such an agreement is in Bell Atlantic's interest because under current law the company needs competition for its local phone business before Bell Atlantic can begin offering long-distance service in its local service area, Layman said.
Layman said he expected SCC approval for R&B's application by the end of the year and to be offering local phone service in the new territory within nine to 12 months.
He didn't appear worried about competing with some of the big boys in the telecommunications industry. "We would anticipate to get our fair share," he said.
A telecommunications company's size is not going to be a determining factor in whether it's successful, said Farley Shiner, an industry analyst with Scott & Stringfellow Inc., a Richmond investment firm.
In today's marketplace, it's more important to be able to provide a wide variety of services with the highest level of customer service, Shiner said. R&B, with a good customer-service attitude, an existing customer base, and a wide array of services to offer should be positioned to succeed, he said.
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