Breaking free Bellcore takes wing giving Telecom Act advice >BY SANDRA GUY, News Editor

Just as Bell regional holding companies must redefine themselves for a competitive market, so too must Bellcore, their increasingly independent software, engineering and consulting arm.

Bellcore now offers all carriers and service providers its expertise and experience in technical and economic issues surrounding every detail of the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996-important parts of which are tied up in court.

The topics range from the hottest-local number portability-to the more nitty-gritty, including unbundling and interconnection, mediated access, wholesaling and retailing network elements and services, and network integrity reliability and fraud management. Bellcore, after all, designed the intraLATA network and developed 80% of the operations systems used today in local networks.

The RHCs face a stringent timetable to enact permanent number portability, enabling people to keep their phone numbers without losing calling features when they move. Chicago will be the first to test number portability next summer. The largest cities in each of the seven Bell regions must have true portability by the end of December 1997, under Federal Communications Commission order. The other 93 largest metropolitan areas must follow by the end of 1998.

The work involved translates to upgrading 53 switches a week. And it's expected to cost $50 million to $100 million per LATA to upgrade the switches. "The question is whether switch suppliers can keep up with the demands," said Frank Gratzer, Bellcore segment managing director of core network infrastructure. The changes likely will require a rethinking of network architecture itself, including aggregating smaller switches, he said.

The population of the 100 largest cities represents more than 50% of the U.S. population, noted Carole O'Brien, executive director for strategic marketing at Bellcore. "It would be as if half the population of the United States moved to new neighborhoods in the morning and expected their mail to be delivered at their new addresses that afternoon," she said of the mandate.

Bellcore offers software and consulting services to help create and operate the databases that must be checked to route calls correctly.

Unbundling and interconnection also pose challenges for existing networks that were designed to be operated by a single provider, Gratzer said. Bellcore is working on a suite of software products to address incumbent carriers' new roles as wholesalers and will eventually tackle the demands that reselling will place on the networks. It offers billing services for retail providers from wholesale networks.

Bellcore also is hosting a Nov. 7 workshop as the first step in an industrywide effort to define generic requirements for local interconnection, unbundling and potentially for electronic bonding.

One analyst said Bellcore, whose long-anticipated sale appears imminent, must play its cards right to make its expert knowledge and other capabilities relevant in the changing telecom market.

It faces competition from switch vendors that also can offer detailed advice, niche-oriented consultancies and systems integration arms of the RHCs, according to Sanjay Mewada, an analyst with The Yankee Group, Boston.

"If Bellcore can put together a compelling value proposition, [carriers will] probably realize there is no one else. The ball is in Bellcore's court," he said.

CARIBBEAN AREA CODES FEED SCAM Carriers are warning everyone to be on guard for the "809" scam. Until recently, the 809 area code covered the entire Caribbean. Now that the islands have 17 new area codes, scam artists are preying on unwitting people who are unfamiliar with them. Area codes in the Caribbean can be used as pay-per-call numbers, similar to 900 numbers in the U.S. The scam artists usually leave a message explaining that a Caribbean phone number must be called to obtain information about a sick relative or to avoid legal proceedings on a fictitious outstanding balance. The call can cost up to $25 per minute.

RCN JOINS BOSTON REVOLUTION RCN Inc. plans to offer Boston residents local telephone service after signing an interconnection agreement last week with Nynex. The subsidiary of C-TEC Corp. recently started a joint venture with Boston Edison to offer voice, video and Internet access service and energy management services in the greater Boston area. RCN plans to deploy its phone service over a 320-mile fiber network that includes Boston Edison's 200 miles.