The regional Bell operating companies continued to make strides in their quest to win long-distance approval in their local territories this week with BellSouth submitting applications for five more states and Verizon winning approval to offer long-distance services in Maine.
Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, an RBOC must prove there is competition for local services in a state before it is allowed to offer long-distance services in that state. The RBOCs include BellSouth, Qwest, SBC and Verizon.
So far SBC has won long-distance approval in five states, BellSouth in two, Verizon in seven and Qwest is still looking for its first state. Qwest submitted applications for five of its states to the Federal Communications Commission earlier this month.
The five states BellSouth applied for this week are: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. The FCC has 90 days to either approve or reject the applications.
The only two states BellSouth has not yet filed are Florida and Tennessee.
Getting long-distance approval in their local territory would ultimately allow the RBOCs to better compete for nation-wide enterprise long-distance accounts with the interexchange carriers such as AT&T, Sprint and WorldCom.
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
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