Word: carriere
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...long-distance business, where it had previously controlled more than 95% of the market, while the seven regional companies, dubbed Baby Bells, managed local telephone service. To whittle down AT&T's market share, the Justice Department determined that consumers should be able to choose their long-distance carrier...
...Equal access was intended to change that. On behalf of the long-distance carriers, the regional Bells mailed ballots to customers formerly in the old Bell System, giving them an average of 30 days to mark and return them. Depending on the services contending in any area, customers may have been faced with more than a dozen carrier names on some ballots. As equipment capable of handling such functions was installed at local telephone offices, retailers in each area would be given equal access to the dial-1 system -- hence the balloting's informal name. By the Sept. 1 deadline...
Those consumers who received ballots but did not vote -- perhaps 30% of telephone users -- will find the choice made for them. They will be assigned a carrier according to the outcome in their region. If ballots split 60% for AT& T and 40% for MCI, for example, 60% of nonvoting consumers would receive AT&T service while the remainder would find themselves dialing on MCI. Customers could switch carriers thereafter, but would pay a $5 fee to their local Baby Bell...
...business. Sprint and Western Union have also been charged with using bait-and- switch tactics, quoting one long-distance subscription rate to consumers, then charging another. Yet despite all those occurrences, FCC overseers claim the election process has been fair. Says Albert Halprin, chief of the FCC's common-carrier division: "The process was not perfect. But considering its size and scope, I'm surprised at how smoothly things have gone...
...major irony of the telephone balloting is that resolving the equal- access issue is liable to make business even rougher for AT&T's competitors. | That is because of the fees called access charges that carriers pay to the Baby Bells, whose equipment connects consumer phones to a long- distance carrier. For AT&T's rivals, these fees are rising fast, and will probably grow even faster to pay for the new equal-access connection. In many cases, access fees have jumped from about 10% of long-distance retailer revenues two years ago to more than 50% today. Moreover...