MCI, Pac Bell face off over codes

MCI filed a formal complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission last week, alleging Pacific Bell is abusing its authority as the state's area code relief administrator. California must implement two new area codes in the Bay Area and the Sacramento region. Competitors are pushing for a geographic split, in which an area served by a single code is divided. Pacific Bell wants the codes assigned as an overlay, which means only new customers will be issued the new area codes. Competitors believe the overlay plan is anticompetitive, since competitors' customers will receive the new area code while Pacific Bell's customers will be able to continue to receive the old area code. MCI's complaint, however, relates to the series of press conferences that Pacific Bell has held throughout the state regarding area code exhaust over the last few months. Several of the meetings included the state's area code administrator, Bruce Bennett, a Pacific Bell employee. "The code administrator is supposed to be an objective person," said Tony DiTirro, regulatory manager at MCI. "We turn confidential information over to the code holder, and then we see him out there in a public relations campaign on this issue." But Pacific Bell says there was nothing controversial or objectionable about any of those meetings, and a representative from the CPUC was actually present at one of them. "We presented the pros and cons of the area code relief methods," said Andrea Cooper, numbering technology manager at Pacific Bell. Moreover, Cooper said, Pacific Bell would prefer not to be involved in area code administration, but the job was handed to incumbent local exchange carriers after divestiture. The telco will submit a report to the CPUC on April 12 proposing transferring the function to a third party administrator, she added.