THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140430
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Bell Atlantic responded to recent news of a possible teaming of AT&T and MCI in the local phone business with a little announcement of its own: The Mid-Atlantic-based Baby Bell is getting into the long-distance phone business.
The rumblings from the phone giants come just days after President Clinton signed legislation throwing open the country's telecommunications industry by letting long-distance and local phone companies go head-to-head in each others' territories.
Bell Atlantic plans to offer long-distance service in five states - North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Illinois and Texas - after it gets regulatory approval in each state.
Its ambitions go beyond that.
``We intend to be a nationwide long-distance provider,'' Bell Atlantic spokesman Paul Miller said.
``Welcome to the fray,'' AT&T spokesman Herb Linnen said.
Bell Atlantic became the first of the Baby Bells - officially known as the Regional Bell Operating Companies - to enter the long-distance business.
The company can't offer long-distance in its own Mid-Atlantic service area until it meets a 14point checklist that essentially forces Bell Atlantic to open up its local phone market to competition.
But Bell Atlantic will move swiftly to meet those guidelines because the company wants to provide long-distance service on its home turf, Bell Atlantic Communications President Al Binford said.
Though it throws open local and long-distance phone service to competition, the telecommunications act also produces a tangled web: To provide its own service, Bell Atlantic plans to buy long-distance service from a company that owns its own network, such as MCI, AT&T or Sprint. Those national carriers will compete to sell service at a wholesale rate to Bell Atlantic, which will then turn around and compete with the same carriers to provide long-distanceto individual customers and businesses.
With Tuesday's announcement, Bell Atlantic clearly wanted its competitors - a group that most expect to eventually include the other Baby Bells - to know it would not dawdle with its expansion. Binford pointed out that the company kept a promise it made last week ``to act on our long-distance plans within five days of President Clinton's signing'' of the telecommunications act.
The company's next target date is to have service in place in those first five states by the end of June, Miller said. Bell Atlantic expects to continue filing for approval in other states outside its home territory.
And sometime in the next 12 to 15 months, the company wants to be offering long-distance service to at least some of its 12 million local phone customers in New Jersey, New Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this report.
by CNB