George Bush, Al Gore and your local bell

By David Rohde
Network World, 06/19/00

It seems you can never underestimate the speed at which the regional Bell operating companies will get into the long-distance business.

So don't blame me if I once again throw cold water on the Bells' claims about when they will get into long-distance. This time it's the fault of presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush, because no RBOC long-distance breakout is likely to occur until one of these guys is installed in the Oval Office. Let me explain:

Elsewhere this week we report on new data services from Bell Atlantic that link corporate locations in New York with sites outside the Bell Atlantic region. Bell Atlantic can do this because it won long-distance authority for New York last December.

This is how it was supposed to work all along. By now long-distance carrier consolidation was supposed to be offset by Bell companies providing national and international transport.

However, New York is the only state where the Bell has long-distance authority. According to a recent Lehman Brothers conference call, the only other state that may see an RBOCgain long-distance authority this year is Texas, where SBC Communications has filed an application.

Now you'd think Bell Atlantic would quickly file more long-distance applications so its new services could link New York with Boston and Philadelphia as well as Chicago and London. But the Lehman analysts say the Massachusetts application won't come to the Federal Communications Commission until late this year, with Pennsylvania and New Jersey early next year.

Part of the problem is Bell Atlantic had to suspend testing of its local-competition systems in those states this spring when it pulled personnel to work on back-office problems in New York.

Another factor is the presidential election. The Bells have often attributed their slow long-distance rollout to allegedly rough treatment at the hands of the Clinton administration's FCC. Some believe the Bells would have an easier time if Bush were elected president and the FCC shifted to a Republican majority. With Bush leading in the polls, it might pay to wait.

A rational person might say such calculation is silly. For a few weeks the pundits have Bush on the ropes, then Gore looks bad for a while. The best you can say is the election will probably be close. Why delay a business opportunity in the meantime?

Because the Bells are intensely political organizations. People who work for them are the kind who not only soak up all the political babble in the papers and on TV, but also subscribe to "insider" services that pretend to have some unique foresight about upcoming elections.

Could a Gallup poll really trump the opportunity to bid on thousands of long-distance contracts for the rest of this year? In the regulated Bell culture, absolutely.

Don't laugh. With the way things are going, by the 2004 election IT vendors could base the timing of their hardware and software releases on the presidential polls, too.