Bell Atlantic expected to win long-distance approval in N.Y.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Analysts are heading to the betting windows and placing their money on Bell Atlantic after the giant carrier filed last week at the Federal Communications Commission for long-distance authority in New York.

But simply because the FCC is likely to approve Bell Atlantic's application doesn't mean corporate users will suddenly have a wave of new carrier-service options, experts caution.

Shortly after Bell Atlantic filed its long-awaited longdistance application at the FCC, investment house Janney Montgomery Scott issued a note predicting that the FCC will approve Bell Atlantic's New York application. But the investment firm warned that some long-distance carriers are likely to sue the FCC if the commission does give Bell Atlantic the go-ahead, and AT&T issued a statement attacking Bell Atlantic's action.

Investment bank Warburg Dillon Read predicts that Bell Atlantic will get the FCC OK, citing an exhaustive test of Bell Atlantic's local-competition systems in New York by auditor KPMG Peat Marwick.

But Warburg analyst Linda Meltzer cautioned that if Bell Atlantic gets the FCC nod, the carrier will start by selling consumer long-distance and then small-business services. Enterprise voice and data services across local boundaries will come later because such services are more "complex," Meltzer says.

Bell Atlantic President Jim Cullen, in an analysts' conference call, said the carrier would be ready to go for long-distance on "Day One" after it received FCC approval. But he also noted that the long-distance network Bell Atlantic would initially use would be cobbled together from its own facilities and those wholesaled from other carriers.

The FCC has 90 days to turn thumbs up or down on Bell Atlantic's New York application. But the regional Bell operating company will have to apply separately for all the other states in its East Coast region. KPMG testing in the next two states in Bell Atlantic's long-distance plans - Massachusetts and Pennsylvania - has only just begun, Cullen said.

And you shouldn't expect to see the other RBOCs filing for long-distance authority in a wave even if the FCC OKs the New York application, says Steve Sazegari, president of Tele-Mac, an independent consultancy in Foster City, Calif.

The recent price war for consumer long-distance has soured some of the Bells on the whole project, he says.

"A lot of the RBOCs have already backed off from long-distance because they don't think there's anything for them in that market," Sazegari says.