BRIEFLY AREA CODE INCREASE PROMPTS 411 ENHANCEMENT

Chicago-based Ameritech has launched National Directory Assistance, making it the nation's first major telco to offer directory assistance without the customer having to know the area code of the number he's looking for. The 411 service, which began Sept. 9 in the Chicago area, comes in response to the recent proliferation of new, unfamiliar area codes across the country.

FRAME RELAY CUSTOMERS GET MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE Intermedia Communications Inc. is offering its frame relay customers a service guarantee of end-to-end network performance, including local loops. The guarantee, offered to retail end users with 12 installed nodes, covers network availability, frame relay delivery rate, mean time to repair and network transit delay. Intermedia also added a network monitoring tool, called Enhanced Customer View, to its frame relay transport service.