Looking for SBC over the horizon

Welcome to Eye on the Carriers' third annual "When is SBC going to compete with the other Bells?" sweepstakes. Pay close attention because there's a special prize at the end.

In May 1998, SBC Communications shocked the world by announcing it was buying Ameritech. Although SBC has since promoted other "benefits" of this huge roll-up of near-monopoly assets, the original announcement focused on one breakthrough. SBC said following the merger it would enter 30 markets outside its region as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) against the other remaining Bells.

In mid-1998 and mid-1999, I asked SBC for details of its CLEC buildout - number of route miles, types of switches, that kind of thing. They had no answers. At that point the promise was political bait to please the regulators.

But when the Ameritech takeover was approved last October, the Federal Communications Commission gave SBC three years to fulfill its promise, with an interim deadline of October 2000 to put switches in at least three of the 30 cities. When I called SBC this year, it finally had something to talk about.

SBC recently placed two switches in its initial cities: Boston, Miami and Seattle. One platform is the 5ESS, Lucent's classic circuit switch for local telephone companies. The other is the CBX 500, Lucent's ATM switch anchoring a host of data services, including frame relay. In Miami and Seattle, the switches are collocated in facilities of SBC's long-distance partner Williams Communications. In Boston, it is in SBC's Cellular One central office.

In May, SBC announced it was buying local dark fiber nationwide from Metromedia Fiber Network and, for Florida, FPL FiberNet. SBC will have 50,000 route miles of OC-3 and OC-12 capacity available via these agreements. Initially, SBC may rent local loops from the incumbent Bells, but over time it will try to reach customers via this fiber. SBC will also do a network-to-network interface with Williams' national ATM net.

Progress? I wonder. If the FCC tells SBC to enter three out-of-region markets by October 2000 - nearly two-and-a-half years after SBC made its original promise - why does SBC do that as if becoming a CLEC is like being dragged to the dentist?

SBC needs to get its marketing act together.Whenever I call a toll-free phone number for SBC Telecom, the company's CLEC division, I either get a recording to leave my name and phone number, or a generic customer service line.

You can always leave e-mail. I did so in June and got a nice message back saying SBC local service is not available in Washington, D.C., but it will contact me when it is. So why don't you try? Go to: www.sbctelecom.com/ContactUs/Bus_Feedback. First one outside of Boston, Miami and Seattle who gets a message back that SBC is ready to replace your local Bell's lines wins your choice of a Network World mug or mouse pad! Stay tuned for the results.

What do you think? Jump into nwfusion.talk and start a thread.

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