THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120550
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 55 lines
GTE Corp. plans to announce today that it will offer long-distance telephone services to customers throughout Virginia. It is another in a growing string of forays by communications companies into new lines of business as state and federal rules that had prevented competition quickly crumble.
GTE, the state's second-largest local phone-services provider behind Bell Atlantic Corp., is taking advantage of a sweeping telecommunications reform bill passed earlier this year by Congress.
The company plans to offer long-distance services not just to its existing local phone-service customers in Virginia, including about 70,000 in greater Hampton Roads, but to customers of Bell Atlantic and other local phone companies.
More details of the plan were not available Tuesday. But GTE has said it intends to offer long-distance services to customers in 28 states by the end of this year. It already sells such services in 13 of those states.
GTE, like other big telecommunications companies, has staked its long-term survival on its ability to offer customers a wide package of services. AT&T Corp. is perhaps the furthest along in such packaging. It can offer many of its customers not just long-distance phone service, but also cellular service, satellite TV and access to the global Internet computer network. In addition, AT&T has taken steps to get back into the local-exchange phone business in Virginia and other states.
Even niche provider 360 Communications Co., a cellular company, is branching out in the quest to be an all-purpose provider. It recently mailed fliers offering up to six hours of free cellular air time to its customers who sign up for the company's long-distance service, which 360 provides through a resale agreement with its former parent, Sprint Corp.
In its gambit into long distance, GTE is getting a head start on Bell Atlantic because it faces no regulatory hurdles. It was exempted from a provision in the federal law that requires Bell Atlantic and other so-called regional Bell operating companies that want to offer long-distance services to first take steps to open their own local phone-service monopolies to competition.
Bell Atlantic has moved swiftly to overcome its hurdles. Last week, it announced an ``interconnect'' agreement with Northern Virginia cable-TV provider Jones Communications that will help Jones get into local phone services. It is also in discussions with dozens of other companies, including AT&T and Cox Communications Inc., that want to offer local phone services.
But before Bell Atlantic can start providing long-distance services, its agreement with Jones must be approved by the State Corporation Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. And those agencies may require Bell Atlantic to take some other pro-competitive steps.
Paul Miller, a Bell Atlantic spokesman, said that if the company gets the necessary approvals, the earliest it will be able to offer long-distance services is the first half of 1997. by CNB