White pages with a difference: Bellcore software seeks to streamline directory publishing

Southwestern Bell Telephone is the first carrier to install new directory-building software from Bellcore that automates document handling and allows for local number portability.

The Advanced Listing Products and Services System consists of two modules. The first, a client/server directory listing database, automates the process of transferring customer listings to local white pages and directory assistance databases. The second module lets incumbent carriers and directory publishers offer customized listings.

A Southwestern Bell spokeswoman confirmed that the company is using the Bellcore product but declined to provide details.

Competitive local exchange carriers should find the new technology a valuable and reliable way to get their subscribers into local phone books, according to Alice Ann Mason, Bellcore's director of business operations systems. "These are sometimes small companies, and they're completely concentrated on the network side of the business," she said. "Directories and operator-assisted listings are often completely ignored."

Most CLECs use complex paper forms to send subscriber listings to incumbents or directory compilers, and those forms are often returned for errors. ALPSS avoids such paperwork-and the $35 transaction charge every time an incumbent LEC bounces an entry back to the CLEC-with batch entry, a graphical user interface, and a system that checks and validates the data before it is released to the incumbent, Mason said.

>From the incumbents' standpoint, ALPSS addresses two concerns of the near future: the Year 2000 problem and the special requirements of local number portability. The software is Year 2000-functional and permits white pages compilers to assign customers to specific local directories independent of their telephone prefixes.

"Carriers have a choice of dealing with these issues either by patchwork retrofits or by investing in a system that solves these problems and offers value-added publishing functions," said Mason.

The second module, ALPSS/ Mozart, is a composition/pagination system. Carriers have viewed their white pages as a cost center, Mason pointed out, but Bellcore research shows that residential and commercial customers are interested in-and willing to pay for-enlarged white pages listings for business and residential numbers.

ALPSS/Mozart can process multiple listings for a single customer's fax machine, pager, cellular phone, e-mail address and URL and publish them with the customer's logos, banner ads and special typefaces.

"All carriers have customers with unlisted numbers who would like to give out their voice mail number," Mason said. "That's revenue that hasn't been picked up until now."

According to a 1990 First Market Research study of white pages opportunities, 41% of residential customers with unlisted numbers would like to be able to direct 411 inquiries into a voice mail box. Among those, 12% expressed interest in an enhanced directory listing that used a logo or graphic; 14% would consider printing a basic listing in color; and 31% said they would like to include additional lines in their standard white pages listing.

Telephony has rounded out its editorial staff with the addition of Brian Quinton as Associate Editor-New Media.

Quinton will add depth to Telephony's coverage of technology issues related to cable TV, Internet access and Internet protocol voice, as well as the related business strategies of carriers and vendors. In addition, he will contribute to the magazine's New Media section and write news and feature stories for Telephony and its supplements.

Before joining Telephony, Quinton worked as a freelance writer for six years, covering a variety of business topics and industries. He also wrote for several magazines in the restaurant/food services market. Quinton holds a bachelor's degree in English from Colgate and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

"We are very pleased to add someone with Brian's background to the Telephony editorial staff," said New Media Editor Vince Vittore. "His years of experience in a variety of fields will be a real asset."

Quinton's appointment is the most recent of several editorial assignments designed to give readers a more comprehensive technology and business product.

Quinton will work out of Telephony's Chicago headquarters and can be reached by phone at (312) 840-8438 or by e-mail at brian_quinton@intertec.com.