James Price Salsman <js7a+@andrew.cmu.edu> (01/05/90)
[Moderator's Note: Mr. Salsman forwarded this message to us which was posted earlier today in a news file at andrew.cmu.edu PT] NEW YORK -- American Telephone & Telegraph Co. is seeking permission from the Federal Communications Commission to offer corporate customers nationwide computer access to local phone listings. If approved, the service will be the first of its kind in the country, as local phone companies are barred by law from offering access to facilities outside their own service areas. Moreover, AT&T's service could eventually alter the way local phone companies staff their directory assistance operations, because corporations, which account for most calls to operators, will be able to get access to phone numbers anywhere in the country without human intervention. "It's just like directory assistance today, only you access the information using a computer instead of talking to the operator," said Nora Glover, product manager for the new service. AT&T plans to begin offering the service, dubbed AT&T Find America, on Jan. 18, when the FCC's normal 45-day period for public comment on the request expires. It will be available initially to companies seeking listings of customers in the five-state territory of Southwestern Bell Corp., the St. Louis-based regional Bell telephone company. By the end of the year, however, AT&T plans to cement agreements with all seven regional Bell companies and offer the service nationwide. By mid-1990, AT&T plans to begin talks with overseas telephone administrations about extending the service internationally, Glover said. AT&T made its request to the FCC on Dec. 4 in a special tariff filing, but chose not to publicize it because "We didn't have a name for the service" at the time, Glover said. The FCC said the tariff has been unopposed. AT&T is aiming the service at the banking and credit industries first, said Kimberley Partoll, marketing manager for the new service. Secondary targets will be the retail and transportation industries. All that a customer will need is a computer terminal or mainframe computer to get access to the same listings from phone company data bases that operators use, with one exception: Unlisted numbers won't be made available. Partoll said customers have shown an interest in the new service, but can't sign up until after midnight Jan. 17, when the tariff is expected to take effect. AT&T is offering to waive for one month the $2,200 monthly fee for any customer that subscribes by Feb. 28. AT&T also will knock off the $100 charge for listing the customer's password. Besides these regular fees, AT&T will charge 35 cents for each computer screen of information and $22 an hour for transmission. Glover said each of those transmissions should take about 3.6 seconds to retrieve a listing -- about one-tenth the time that a regular directory assistance call takes today. In its FCC filing, AT&T estimated that first-year revenue from the service will amount to at least $12.6 million, or 3.2 million minutes of usage. After three years, AT&T estimated, revenue could hit $82.8 million a year. A spokesman for Southwestern Bell said the company also is offering other long-distance carriers, such as MCI Communications Corp., the opportunity to provide computer access to its local phone listings. Regarding the services' potential effect on operator staffing, he said: "This is a new service. We don't really know that now." At MCI, a spokesman said the company is studying AT&T's proposal, but doesn't have any immediate plans to offer similar service. US Sprint Communications Co., a unit of United Telecommunications Inc., didn't have any comment. [Moderator's Note: Illinois Bell has offered a similar service for several years but using only its own directory database. The service here, called 'Directory Express' allows access to the same information the operators use, using a terminal or PC. It is not cheap, the charge is by the hour of connect time, and about the only subscribers are some large credit grantors and collection agencies. PT]