Bell Atlantic's local-competition systems on the blink

CLECs having difficulty placing orders, getting acknowledgements.

By David Rohde
Network World Fusion, 02/16/00

Bell Atlantic is having trouble provisioning its local competitors' orders in New York - less than two months after it won long-distance authority precisely on the promise that its local markets are open to new players.

The problem is apparently centered in Bell Atlantic's implementation of Netscape's ECXpert e-commerce platform that it uses to handle competitors' orders, Network World has learned.

According to sources close to the situation, a large ramp-up in the number of competitors' orders that Bell Atlantic is now receiving has led to severe system slowdowns. That has led competitive local exchange carriers to be unable to provision user orders in promised time frames. AT&T late Wednesday told Network World that as many as "tens of thousands" of orders from it and other alternative local carriers are being held up.

It was not immediately known whether the root cause of the resulting scalability issue is due to anything in the ECXpert platform itself or to Bell Atlantic's own network facilities running between itself and the CLECs.

But a Bell Atlantic spokesman acknowledged a "software problem," though he said the company is working with "several vendors" to return the system to normal. "We've thrown a lot of resources of the company at it, and we hope to have it fixed promptly," he added. He said that generally orders are actually being received and processed properly, but system acknowledgements for some reason are not flowing back to the CLEC, leaving them unable to confidently tell their customers when service will begin.

However, CLECs are also supposed to have access to access to the ECXpert platform via the Internet, and that avenue appears to have virtually shut down at times over the last few days. For example, on Bell Atlantic's Web site for wholesale customers, on Feb. 10 it reported in a trouble ticket, "Multiple CLECs reporting no access to the Bell Atlantic network via the Internet." Later that day, it also reported "slow response time" on one ECXpert form and directed CLECs to use another ECXpert form.

CLECs who do not have fiber directly into end users generally have to gain Bell Atlantic's cooperation in order to process new orders. They request customer information over an electronic e-commerce link, and Bell Atlantic is supposed to coordinate the cutover of the customer to the CLEC without a cutoff in dial tone. Bell Atlantic is also supposed to make sure that billing, directory assistance and other databases are updated through the e-commerce system without the CLEC having to enter the order multiple times.

Large enterprises with direct fiber links into CLECs are not believed to be affected by the current problems. But a large percentage of new CLEC residential and business orders are going through the new cooperative ordering system - since CLECs can't reach all locations with their own fiber.

The Federal Communications Commission granted Bell Atlantic long-distance authority for New York state after finding that this entire system works as advertised at least 93% of the time. Both New York state and federal regulators have threatened penalties against Bell Atlantic - up to and including revocation of its long-distance authority - if local cooperation deteriorates.