Illinois commission temporarily puts Ameritech OSS test on hold

The Illinois Commerce Commission and third-party tester KPMG have decided to temporarily pause testing of SBC subsidiary Ameritech’s operations support system in the state.

KPMG needs time to assess a mountain of data Ameritech recently provided to answer exceptions issued two weeks ago that criticized the carrier’s data-retention policies and its procedures and controls for conducting performance measurement calculations, according to ICC Commissioner Terry Harvill. Until then, Harvill said the ICC will withhold judgment on Ameritech’s answers to the exceptions.

“If you ask Ameritech whether they’ve complied, I’m sure they would say, ‘Yes,’” Harvill said. “But we’re not sure. They kind of overwhelmed us with the information they’ve given us. It’s going to take a number of days, if not weeks, to satisfy KPMG.”

The ICC also found troubling a perceived lack of communication between Ameritech and KPMG, a problem that appears to have been corrected, said Harvill. Nevertheless, he added the ICC believed it was better to stop the tests at this juncture “than to find out in March when the testing is scheduled to conclude that we’re missing key data,” he said.

An Ameritech spokeswoman emphasized the OSS testing as a whole was not paused, just four of 30 transactional components dealing with other systems and processes. She also said Ameritech “feels good” about the direction of its OSS tests in Illinois and that the overall schedule has not been compromised.

“The process will take a while. That’s how OSS testing works,” she said. “It goes back and forth. And we’re going to have more exceptions. You have to remember that this is a military-style test, which means you keep testing until you pass.”