Word: belled
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...howling, because 17 months after the act became law, any significant reductions in local phone bills remain on hold. Less than one-half of one percent of U.S. households receive competitive local service, according to a study by the Yankee Group consulting firm, and not a single Baby Bell has opened its home market enough, in the judgment of regulators, to be permitted to offer long-distance calling there. "This law has been a disaster," says Arizona Republican Senator John McCain...
...major players have appeared more eager to make love than war. The marriage of Northeastern neighbors NYNEX (1996 revenues: $13.5 billion) and Bell Atlantic ($13.1 billion) awaits final government approval, while Southwestern titan SBC Communications has hooked up with Pacific Bell in California to create a $23.5 billion MegaBell. And in perhaps the worst-kept secret in Big Business history, AT&T ($52.2 billion) tried to buy the bulked-up SBC in a deal that went dead last month over disagreements between the companies and the hostility of regulators...
Such tactics have done much to blunt the invaders' advance. In California AT&T had hoped to add local subscribers at the rate of 5,000 a day. But Bennett says Pacific Bell has been installing local service for only about 100 new AT&T customers a day, forcing him to scale back marketing efforts in the Golden State. New MCI subscribers have experienced similar delays. Jonathan Sallet, MCI's chief policy counsel, says PacBell takes an average of three weeks to switch on MCI customers in California, although PacBell switches on its own clients in seven days. Replies...
...would certainly take away the advantage now enjoyed by GTE, which has some 20 million local customers scattered across 29 states. GTE (1996 sales: $21.3 billion) was never part of the Ma Bell monopoly, and thus is free to offer long-distance service to its local subscribers without having to open its own markets first. GTE has already signed up more than 1.25 million long-distance subscribers, snatching most of them from...
...Chicago-based Ameritech (1996 sales: $14.9 billion) are getting ready to join the race too. While the Justice Department recommended that regulators reject Ameritech's application to provide long-distance service in June, Justice said the company had satisfied 11 of 14 requirements for opening its market. The Baby Bell still has a month to make up the deficiencies before the FCC rules. Richard Notebaert, Ameritech's chomping-at-the-bit chairman and CEO, can't wait to grab part of the $9 billion long-distance market in the five states that his company has already wired up. "We have...