DATE: Thursday, June 5, 1997                TAG: 9706050515

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   68 lines

LOCAL PHONE SERVICE NOW OFFERED

Cox Communications may be known mostly as ``the cable company,'' but Wednesday morning it jumped into the local phone business.

Cox has begun offering ``switched'' local telephone service to the 100 to 150 businesses that it already connects to long-distance networks or internal data networks, the company said.

Sometime next year, Cox's 387,000 Hampton Roads cable TV customers will see a slip with their bills offering them the option to get local phone service through Cox, rather than Bell Atlantic Corp. or GTE.

``This is no longer just a cable company,'' said Cox CEO Jim Robbins, who Wednesday morning made a ceremonial first phone call from his Atlanta office to Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim. ``We are a full-blown communications company.''

Cox is offering the service through its Cox Fibernet subsidiary, which had already been providing phone services to businesses. The difference is that Cox Fibernet has now built a ``switch,'' a large computer that will allow a person to pick up a phone, get a dial tone and make a call. Cox will offer complete service: 911, 411, operator services and directory assistance.

Hampton Roads is the first market in the country in which Cox is offering local phone service. That could help the region recruit new businesses, officials said.

``It's often said that in the economic development business, energy and communications are the two vital pieces,'' Robbins said. ``We certainly hope we are doing our part.''

In fact, though Cox is still waiting for the State Corporation Commission to sign off on some tariff issues, Dollar Tree Stores Inc. and Internet company InfiNet have already signed up.

When it moves from Norfolk to new offices in Chesapeake, Dollar Tree won't have to change phone companies or phone numbers. Cox Fibernet will provide an expanded local calling area that reaches from Chesapeake and the Princess Anne area of Virginia Beach all the way to Williamsburg and Gloucester.

InfiNet can obtain a local number through Cox that will allow Internet users from a wider geographic area to dial the same local phone number.

Cox's entrance into the local telephone business was made possible by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It mandated that Bell Atlantic and other regional Bell operating companies interconnect with potential competitors like Cox. Cox negotiated interconnection agreements with Bell Atlantic, GTE and long-distance companies.

Companies in Virginia, though, had an advantage over those in other states, said Dana G. Coltrin, general manager of Cox Fibernet. Virginia had its rules drafted before Congress approved the act, he said.

Bell Atlantic has interconnection agreements with numerous Virginia companies, spokesman Paul Miller said, but Cox and Jones Communications in Northern Virginia are the only cable companies.

``Is competition a concern? Certainly,'' Miller said. ``But it's a reality. Our primary concern is competing effectively against the likes of AT&T, MCI and Sprint because we cannot yet offer long distance.''

Bell Atlantic plans to apply to state and federal agencies and be able to offer long-distance service sometime next year, Miller said.

Cox officials seem to delight in competing with Bell Atlantic, which made a lot of noise a couple of years ago about offering video services that would compete with Cox. Those plans have yet to materialize.

``If one of our customers wants to call one of their customers, we've got to be interconnected,'' Coltrin said. ``Bell Atlantic now needs us as much as we need them.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot

From left, Wes Neal explains Cox Communications' switching system to

Norfolk Councilman G. Conoly Phillips and Mayor Paul D. Fraim on

Wednesday at the Cox Communications office in Norfolk.

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