Bell Atlantic's Fate Now In FCC's Lap

Communications Today, Sept 30, 1999

As predicted here yesterday, Bell Atlantic [BEL] today filed its Section 271 application for New York long distance with the FCC.

Slamming critic AT&T [T] as "world-class serial whiners" and brandishing the strongest competition figures to date for an ILEC, Bell Atlantic CEO Ivan Seidenberg and President James Cullen came out breathing fire at a press conference, vowing to get 30 percent of the New York consumer long-distance market within five years.

"The local market in New York is irrevocably, indisputably open today," Cullen told reporters. Entry into long distance is not a gift, but a right the company has earned by surviving the New York PSC's strenuous application process, he said.

Important, if true. Industry insiders, jaded from watching Section 271 applications in states (can you say, "South Carolina?") with hardly any competition, nonetheless have been impressed with the New York process. Its independent, KPMG testing of the incumbent's OSS is being copied in other states.

Seidenberg, however, sounded less than thrilled. "The regulatory process has taken too long to lighten the load on the incumbents," he said.

The New York PSC has 20 days to issue its recommendation on the application, and the FCC 90 to decide. Bell Atlantic's chances are good at the PSC. Not everyone expects it to get an "A " from New York, however. Mike Morrissey, AT&T's vice president for law and government affairs, predicted a "Mona Lisa report." "I think Bell Atlantic will say Mona Lisa is smiling. We'll say she's frowning."