MediaOne launches telephony in L.A.

Cable telephony, relegated to the technological scrap heap by many cable operators, will take another small step back to life this week when MediaOne announces plans to provide competitive residential telephone service in Los Angeles.

Building off its MediaOne Express cable modem service and using ADC Telecommunications' Homeworx platform, the company initially is targeting 35,000 homes in the Culver City, Calif., area. That territory will expand to 254,000 homes by year-end, said Barbara Hockert, vice president of telephony for MediaOne's western region.

"We have a very aggressive plan to target both [single-family residential areas and multiple dwelling units] and become the real competitive provider," she said.

MediaOne will market the service in three packages. The basic package includes one line with caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding and speed dialing for $39.75 a month. Two lines with one carrying the same features will cost $54.95 a month, and adding all the features to both lines will run $59.95 a month.

The company also is offering 500 free minutes of intraLATA calling per line, free installation and an expanded local calling zone of 16 miles.

"We've done a great deal of research, and we designed our packages around what the customers told us was important," said Hockert.

MediaOne launched similar service in Atlanta late last year. "We've gotten to a point where we believe the technology is mature," said Marwan Fawaz, vice president of engineering for MediaOne's western region.

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