John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com> (06/08/91)
Ken Jongsma <jongsma@esseye.si.com> writes: (quoting) > Of the top 10 cellular carriers, only No. 1 McCaw Cellular > Communications is not now owned by a conventional "wireline" phone > company. Indeed, phone companies are mainly battling one another: > Ameritech and Southwestern Bell will go head to head in St. Louis and > Chicago. And in San Francisco, even McCaw's Cellular One is held in partnership with Pacific Telesis (Pac*Bell). This means that you have, in essence, GTE battling Pac*Bell. > I find the second paragrah very disturbing. Some may claim that there > is no way that the local service ratepayer subsidizes this business, > but at the very least, it distracts the RBOCs from doing what they > ought to be. That is, delivering improved local wireline service. And judging from the way Pac*Bell's wireline service is deteriorating, there is probably some truth to this. Oh, you would like some examples? The business office has now gone to 'automated attendent'. Most COs are completely unmanned after hours. The program services department has gone completely to hell. The right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing anymore. Frankly, I have never seen worse service from Pac*Bell, and it appears to be going down hill rapidly. Rather than offering The Message Center, Centrex, Cable TV, Cellular Service, Long Distance, and a host of other non-regulated products, I would like to have an LEC that can provide what I cannot go anywhere else to get: telephone and leased line service that works. Weeks ago I ordered a pair of 15Khz program circuits for a radio station in preparation for a repeater project. Last week's due date was missed because the circuit was engineered BACKWARDS. That is right: it was designed to carry audio from the repeater site back to the studio. Very useful indeed. A new due date was scheduled for Wednesday (last). Instead, the day before (Tuesday) I got a surprise call: could I let them into the repeater site for an end to end test and turn-up? No, but we rescheduled for today (Friday). After standing around ALL DAY with the installer, it turns out that no one had bothered to check some interoffice equalizations and the line was not ready for turn-up after all. They will try again on Monday. I have never seen such incompetence in a quarter-century of professional dealings with telephone companies. I have seen GTE perform substantially better than that which has come from the most recent transactions with Pac*Bell. What is happening? Insiders tell me that the most intense handwringing at Pacific Telesis centers around the inevitable loss of the intraLATA monopoly. This has been the cash engine since divestiture. In preparation for this, there has been considerable "fat trimming" in addition to the expected search for new revenue sources. Apparently, some of the meat has been removed with the fat, since the number of competent people available to customers has noticeably dropped. As mentioned before, since Pac*Bell is afraid to increase business rates much for fear of bypass, affordable residence service may become a thing of the past. Look for a substantial rise in the not-so-distant future. Unlike big business, you and I have nowhere else to go. I have said it before and I will say it again: prevent companies providing regulated LEC service from branching out. Let these holding companies sell their monopolies to investors who would like to provide telephone service for a nice guaranteed rate of return. And break up the RBOCs. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !