No long-distance for SBC until at least July

By David Rohde
Network World, 04/03/00

Bell company SBC on Monday told the Federal Communications Commission that it wants another 90 days to present its case for entering the long-distance market in Texas.

The move was widely seen as a tacit acknowledgment that the FCC was about to turn SBC's application down. An FCC ruling on the Texas application, filed Jan. 10, had been due this week, since Congress requires a vote from the FCC 90 days after any Bell-company long-distance filing.

SBC stepped in and asked the FCC to "restart the clock" and make its ruling 90 days from now, in July. The Bell company promised that it will file - probably by Wednesday - some additional information about its performance in handling competitors' local orders in Texas.

SBC's move follows a recent pattern of darkening clouds for regional Bell operating companies trying to offer long-distance. The only RBOC that has permission to handle long-distance traffic is Bell Atlantic, and even then only in New York. And Bell Atlantic's residential local-competition systems at times have appeared to deteriorate since it won the New York long-distance nod in December, leading to a recent fine from the FCC (see Bell Atlantic fined for fouling up competitors' orders).

SBC's rivals appear ready to challenge whether it even has legal grounds to request a 90-day extension rather than just withdraw its Texas application. Len Cali, AT&T's vice president of federal regulatory affairs, on Monday called SBC's move "an attempt to subvert the process established by Congress." Citing the congressional requirement that RBOC long-distance applications be disposed of within 90 days, Cali called on the FCC to go ahead and reject the application outright.

FCC Chairman William Kennard did offer SBC a glimmer of hope. In a statement, Kennard did not commit himself on the legality of the extension, but instead said that "if the clock is restarted," all parties would have a "full opportunity to comment on any additional materials submitted in support of the application."

But Kennard added that he was concerned about SBC's willingness to provide local loops for "advanced services" on an equal basis to competitors. The Justice Department has written the FCC expressing concern specifically about SBC's DSL provisioning to competitive local exchange carriers.

For their part, many CLECs are also upset about the way SBC is going about rolling out its own DSL service, called Project Pronto. They claim Project Pronto doesn't provide them with enough collocation space, a choice of DSL line-card vendors, or the ability to get loops for anything other than ADSL (see Details of SBC's DSL plan spark concerns).

No other RBOC long-distance applications are pending at the FCC. Bell Atlantic has said it will file next either for Massachusetts, Pennsylvania or New Jersey, but the company is still testing local-competition systems in those states. BellSouth has said it may file for Georgia this year.