john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (03/16/91)
In light of recent discussions concerning the relaxation of
restrictions preventing LECs from entering the enhanced services
marketplace, it might be of interest to know that hearings on this
very topic are going on right now in California. Behind closed doors,
testimony is being given concerning competitive abuses by Pac*Bell.
Some examples of this abuse:
Pac*Bell offers voicemail and more recently "The Message Center". This
is in direct competition to voicemail bureaus. But Pac*Bell has an
advantage. Besides being able to subsidize its voicemail business with
regulated revenues and offering a very low (artificial) price that VM
bureaus cannot touch, it can integrate the service with the CO switch.
If a customer has messages waiting, telco can provide stutter dial
tone to the customer so that he knows to check the voicemail.
Through its Pacific Telesis subsidiaries, Pac*Bell is wooing customers
to Centrex by offering extended area paging and other services that
cross LATA (and even state) boundaries without having to bother the
customer with nasty old IEC arrangements. Sort of the return to "one
stop shopping" as it were.
The temptation here is to say, "If the customer gets a good product at
a reasonable price, what harm is there?" The problem is that if
Pac*Bell and telcos in general are allowed to stomp out the
competition by unfairly taking advantage of their position as utility
network providers, ultimately there will be a return to the old days
of no choice and take it or leave it pricing.
Pac*Bell would like to see things both ways, in its favor of course.
On the one hand, it wants no competition in the handling of standard
local service. On the other, it wants to compete with it customers in
the marketing of enhanced services such as Centrex, voicemail,
audiotex, and in the future, terminal equipment. This just cannot be
allowed to happen, unless we are prepared for a return to the old days
of Ma Bell, only this time with many mini-tyrants rather than one
national behemoth.
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !