Long-distance providers criticize slow automation >BY RENEE SAUNDERS, Special to Telephony

The interconnection war of words grew louder last week when interexchange carriers and their business users alleged that stonewalling by the Bell regional holding companies and GTE could kill any chance of real competition in local markets. The incumbents deny the charges.

The IXCs claim the incumbent local exchange carriers deliberately are not installing the computer hardware and software throughout their service regions that new competitors need to exchange customer, network and traffic information. Except in some limited areas with upgraded systems, the new entrants must fax or e-mail crucial information to the Bells and GTE, where it is then manually entered into the local network computers.

Because the competitors will either resell services or buy unbundled elements of the existing networks, operations support systems (OSSs) must be in place, "or there will be no local competition," said Brian Moir, general counsel for the Washington-based International Communications Association, which represented the businesses.

The Competitive Telecommunications Association, along with executives from Sprint, AT&T, MCI, LCI International and WorldCom, claimed that the incumbents are defying the Federal Communications Commission's regulation that required the OSSs be in place by Jan. 1. Moreover, the RHCs must provide those facilities before they can enter the long-distance market.

CompTel's commitment is reflected in a new group it announced at a Washington press conference last week. The Local Competition Users Group will lobby for a nationally standardized OSS interface and enforcement of the rules requiring the OSS installations.

Pacific Bell employees must manually input customer orders, said Harry Bennett, vice president and general manager of AT&T's local services division.

Some RHCs rely on faxes to receive customer orders. "We've got to have hoards of people in the back office feeding the fax machine and pray to God they have hoards of people on the other end picking the faxes up off of the floor," said Anne Bingaman, president of LCI International's local telecommunications division.

Yet that horse-and-buggy approach is better than some, she said. "Bell Atlantic provides no interface whatsoever. They have an autobahn into our market, and we have a one-lane, rutty country road into theirs," Bingaman said.

Bell Atlantic said the coalition's assertion that the discrepancy is designed to delay competition is "perfectly ridiculous." Bell Atlantic's 40 or so interconnection agreements with competitors provide for OSS interfaces, a spokesman said. "I don't know how many of them are electronic yet, but we are working toward that," he said.

As for the Jan. 1 deadline, the FCC was satisfied with Bell Atlantic's progress, the spokesman said.

Two wireless players are hoping a team effort will help ripen the market for enhanced wireless services.

Motorola's Pan American Wireless Infrastructure Division and GTE Telecommunication Services Inc. have joined to offer wireless network operators intelligent network applications on a service-by-service basis. The market for enhanced services has been slow to catch on because wireless operators-many of which are still putting networks in place-are uncertain what will appeal to their customers.

"We have been frustrated that some of the enhanced services haven't taken off, and this is a way to stimulate the market," said Todd Eliason, president of GTE TSI. "There's a lot of fear and trepidation on behalf of the operators to invest in the infrastructure when they're not sure of the market demand.

The Wholesale IN program lets carriers experiment with different enhanced offerings before deciding to spend money to create a suite of services that might be unnecessary.

"Carriers need to differentiate their offerings while keeping an eye on their operating resources," said Bill Cusack, director of marketing for Motorola's PWID. "They're going to look at this program as a way to do some buy-and-try.

Services for the Wholesale IN program will be generated from a national intelligent network of Motorola's home location register, service node, message register, voice mail server and IS-41 converter. The system will be located in GTE TSI's Intercarrier Service Bureau. The bureau can connect to many wireless carriers' networks in North America to provide services such as billing, roaming validation and fraud control.

"We're letting our customers know that the service bureau does exist and is using Motorola equipment so they can have conformity with their systems," said Cusack.

The service is targeted at network operators using Motorola infrastructure equipment, but both companies agree that smaller carriers with fewer resources might see the most immediate advantages. One of the first takers is C block license holder Wireless North, which granted a contract for code division multiple access gear to Motorola last week.

On the same day that Motorola announced it settled a lawsuit against Rockwell over infringement of its V.34 modem technology, it joined Rockwell in promoting a 56 kb/s chip standard. Coincidence? Later that same day, last Thursday, Motorola filed a lawsuit against U.S. Robotics over the same V.34 modem disputes it had dropped with Rockwell Semiconductor Systems. In both cases, the purported V.34 infringement includes some 56 kb/s issues.

The Rockwell suit, filed in September 1995, actually was settled a week earlier, said Bill Heimbach, Motorola Information Systems Group manager of corporate development.

A lawsuit is only now being filed against U.S. Robotics because Motorola did not want to tie up its management team with two litigations at once, he said.

Motorola had been negotiating with U.S. Robotics for two years, Heimbach said. All the activity on Thursday was for no reason other than to get the ball rolling. "This should speed things up," he said. "We've done it in the spirit of getting closure.

Even before the events of last week, 56 kb/s technology had become a kind of de facto battle. Consumers are eager for 56 kb/s modem technology, but a standard is not expected at least until the end of the year.

Rockwell, Lucent Technologies and now Motorola have come together to develop a 56 kb/s standard they call K56 or K56flex. On the opposing side, U.S. Robotics-by far, the market leader in end user modems-has developed its own proprietary 56 kb/s technology called x2.

Both sides are pushing their own technology to the standards bodies, the ITU-T internationally, and the Telecommunications Industry Association in the U.S. (see related story on page 34). U.S. Robotics has been shipping 34 kb/s modems upgradeable to 56 kb/s for several months. Rockwell plans to do the same soon, and its new ally Motorola will ship modems with Rockwell chips in early March.

"Everyone is getting into playing hardball," said Lisa Pelgrim, an analyst with Dataquest, San Jose. "This brings up a lot of questions: Is [Motorola] going to sue Lucent? They make the chips too. And if they don't sue them, why not?" With the Rockwell agreement, Motorola will be interoperable with Lucent, Heimbach said. He would not comment on the probability of a Lucent lawsuit but noted that Motorola had previous discussions with Lucent that were similar to those with Rockwell and Robotics.