Telecom Industry's First Interconnection Clearinghouse Activated by Telcordia Technologies and GE Information Services

Business Wire, Oct 19, 1999

MORRISTOWN, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 19, 1999--

ServiceGate(TM) Exchange Link automatically connects CLECs to

BellSouth, Ameritech, Bell Atlantic-North, and Southwestern Bell

Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore) and GE Information Services (GEIS) have implemented a centralized clearinghouse designed to revolutionize business transactions between telecommunications trading partners and pave the way for national telecommunications interconnection.

ServiceGate Exchange Link is an Internet-based service that receives order-related information from telecom retailers and wholesalers Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) and Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs). The system then automatically validates that information and transmits it to the appropriate carrier, dramatically simplifying commerce for telecom service providers.

Sprint, the U.S. long distance carrier expanding into the local exchange marketplace, recently implemented volume trading of local service requests using the Exchange Link service. Exchange Link is now facilitating transactions between Sprint and four trading partners, and has plans to add more partners throughout the year.

"Exchange Link allows us to shift our time, energy, and resources away from the tasks involved in connecting to different trading partners, focus on our core business, and give customers the quality service they expect from us," said Carol Bussing, vice president, National Integrated Services for Sprint. "We're confident that this service will prove to be an enormous competitive advantage for Sprint, enabling us to reach across the country, provide quick response to customer requests, have easy access to customer records, and enjoy reliable order flow through with our partners."

"Until now, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for CLECs to deliver national service, due to the complexity of interconnecting with multiple trading partners," explains Michael A. Kret, vice president, Interconnection Solutions for Telcordia. "CLECs have had to establish separate electronic gateways with each ILEC, and manage each partner's different interfaces, data protocols, and thousands of business rules. They've also had to keep up with as many as 1,200 to 1,600 business rule changes and dozens of new software releases that wholesalers might generate every quarter, which divert considerable time and resources from the core business and add up to millions of dollars in recurring operational costs."

Exchange Link, jointly developed and managed by Telcordia and GEIS, changes all that by making simultaneous business transactions with multiple trading partners simple and cost-effective. The business rules, data protocols, and interfaces for all of the nation's wholesalers are already programmed into the service, and the service is continually updated with changes to those rules and interfaces.

CLECs can now simply send e messages are managed and transmitted quickly and virtually error-free. Pre-order requests refer to the custed, such as customer service records and information related to service availability, address validation, dueve this data.

Having accurate pre-order dting requests with invalid address information. normously exciting for all of us to bring these groundbreaking capabilities to the marketplace," says Haskellartnership between Telcordia and GEIS. Telcordid up a nationwide distribution channel for the

of operations support systems, network software and consulting and engineering services to the telecommunicas earned CMM Level Five from the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, the highest sines innovative electronic commerce technologies with Six Sigma process disciplines to create intelligent surs a full suite of solutions utilizing industry Markup Language (XML) technologies. GE managesaryland. The company's website is www.geis.com.

About Sprint

Sprint is a global communications companiers of Internet traffic. Sprint built and operhan 20 million business and residential customers.