Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA29113; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:02:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:02:06 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199702171302.IAA29113@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V17 #43 TELECOM Digest Mon, 17 Feb 97 08:02:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 43 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Secret "Dime-a-Minute" Rate (Jack Decker) US Keeps World Waiting on Telecom Deal (Tad Cook) US West Wants Online Users to Pay More (Tad Cook) NYS-PSC Orders $109.6 Million Nynex Customer Refund (Danny Burstein) 904 Split Finalized (John Cropper) 913 Splits to 785 on July 20th! (John Cropper) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu. 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Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 23:01:14 -0500 From: Jack Decker Subject: AT&T Secret "Dime-a-Minute" Rate This is FYI ... it was posted in the Usenet misc.consumers newsgroup: Subject: Long distance phone rates From: steve@accessone.com (Steve Hoffman) Organization: AccessOne Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 07:50:26 GMT Newsgroups: misc.consumers Message-ID: <3303c759.11036022@news.accessone.com> Best Phone Discounts Go To the Hardest Bargainers Wall Street Journal 2/13/97 Shhhh. Don't tell anybody, but now Ma Bell is a "dime lady," too. Millions of customers switched to Sprint Corp.'s dime-a-minute plan over the past two years, lured by the simple but limited offer from its "dime lady" pitchwoman, Candice Bergen. The Sprint plan charges just 10 cents a minute for long-distance calls on nights and weekends and 25 cents a minute on weekdays. Stung, AT&T Corp. responded with a flat-rate offer that, while less catchy, charges 15 cents a minute around the clock. AT&T named the plan One Rate. Now it turns out that One Rate actually is two rates: AT&T customers can get dime-a-minute calling 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- if only they know to ask for it. That is the hardest part, for AT&T has been uncharacteristically quiet about the new offer. The company hasn't advertised it; it hasn't sent out press releases heralding the latest effort to one-up the folks at Sprint. AT&T's customer-service reps don't even like to talk about it. "How did you find out about this? Who told you?" one AT&T representative demanded to know when a customer dialed the company's main toll-free number seeking the secret discount. AT&T's "you-gotta-ask-for-it" plan is a risky defense. While aimed at stopping customers from sprinting away to Sprint, it is going to irk people who discover they are paying more than they have to. The stealthy offer also reveals a new consumer caveat: the days of one-size-fits-all discount plans may be over, and how good your deal is will depend on how hard you haggle. Some customers, of course, have played long-distance providers off one another in recent years, surfing among carriers to land cash bonuses for switching. Now, the heavily advertised discount plans -- from AT&T's True Reach to MCI One to Sprint Sense -- are yielding to a new kind of telecom bazaar, in which different customers will get different rates. In the entirely unheralded AT&T offer, which it calls One Rate Plus, the toughest bargainers can do even better than the dime-a-minute deal; they can persuade AT&T to waive a $4.95-a-month fee for several months. Sprint, which usually charges 25 cents a minute in daylight hours, will match AT&T's 15-cent rate -- but only if customers demand it. (MCI Communications Corp. claims it doesn't dicker: It stands by a 12-cent-a-minute rate for customers who spend at least $25 a month.) "When I called AT&T, at first the customer rep acted like she didn't know what I was talking about," says Cheryl-Ann Barrington, a One Rate customer in Odenton, Md. "But then I told her my sister got the 10-cent rate, and she gave me the details." Ms. Barrington, who spends up to $90 a month on long-distance calls, landed the all-hours, dime-a-minute rate plus a six-month freebie on the monthly fee. "If my monthly bills don't go down, I'll do something else," she says. The negotiations unnerve even some customers who are nervy enough to hondle. "I was notified about a 12-cent-a-minute MCI plan, and I called AT&T to see if they could offer anything cheaper," says Jack Balos, an AT&T customer in New York. Emboldened by the surprise dime offer, he also landed a refund of $27.90 for the nickel-a-minute extra he has been paying since signing up with One Rate. And he got AT&T to waive the $4.95-a- month fee -- albeit for only two months rather than six. "The individual negotiations are ridiculous," Mr. Balos complains. "They're not advertising this, and that's not fair to the people who have signed up for AT&T's 15-cent One Rate plan." An AT&T spokesman makes no apologies for the special pricing, given the intense competition. It is used, he says, on "a case-by-case basis with an AT&T customer who has gotten an attractive offer from a competitor." But consumers might well wonder "who's being true," says Yankee Group analyst Brian Adamik, borrowing from AT&T's high-profile ad campaign for the True Reach discount program. Over the past year or so "all carriers have had secret pricing offers in their back pockets, and they take them out and use them when needed," he says. AT&T gave its telemarketers the dime plan two weeks ago to keep customers from fleeing to rival discount services. Its unusual level of discretion in making One Rate Plus known may be understandable: The plan marks a 33% discount off the existing One Rate. If millions of customers grabbed for it, that would hinder the already-slow growth in AT&T's revenue, which grew 2.7% last year. That is why AT&T has been raising its basic rates in the past couple of years, and why rivals have been following in lockstep. They aim to offset a falloff in revenue brought about by discounting. Consumer watchdogs have long decried the fact that more than half of AT&T's 80 million household customers still pay high basic rates, apparently unaware of, or uninterested in, cheaper plans. Even the $4.95 monthly fee in One Rate Plus may not necessarily alleviate the revenue pressure. Under the 15-cent-a-minute plan, a customer who makes 300 minutes of long-distance calls in a month would be charged $45. The same customer at a dime a minute would be charged $34.95, or 22% less, even factoring in the $4.95 fee. The mishmash of discounts and hard bargaining will probably increase as customers negotiate individual service plans that bundle in everything from local and long-distance phone service to cellular, paging and Internet access. It lets the phone companies try to differentiate their services from commodity-like long-distance rates. MCI bundles local, long-distance, Internet and wireless services with its MCI One plan. Sprint bundles long-distance, paging, toll-free calls and other services. GTE Corp. has begun to do this in its national markets. Such packaging could enable carriers to wean consumers off discounts -- but will require customers to become savvier about the back-and-forth. A media executive, say, could get her own bundle of phone, Internet and other services, while a person with a home office could get his different bundle at different prices. With every combatant -- from AT&T to even something called the Long Distance Wholesale Club -- offering cut-rate pricing, "fighting on price alone just isn't sustainable," says Mr. Adamik of Yankee Group, a Boston research firm. "Another company will always rise up to beat your price." AT&T is willing to take up the challenge -- for now, although it won't say how long the dime deal will last. While such bargains are unadvertised, with a little persistence you can find out about the latest one by calling the company. Just dial 1-800- CALLATT. The Long-Distance Haggle AT&T ADVERTISED PLAN One Rate: 15 cents per minute on any long-distance call made at any time in the U.S. IF YOU CALL AND ASK One Rate Plus: 10 cents per minute on any long-distance call plus a $4.95 per month fee that is sometimes waived for two or more months. TOLL-FREE NUMBER 1-800-CALL-ATT (1-800-225-5288) Sprint ADVERTISED PLAN Sprint Sense: 10 cents per minute 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Mon.-Fri. and all weekend. During the day the charge is 25 cents per minute IF YOU CALL AND ASK Sprint Sense Day: 15 cents per minute, around the clock, if you tell Sprint you're a work-at-home person or homebound. Sprint also offers a 10-cents-per-minute rate on the one number you call the most. TOLL-FREE NUMBER 1-800-PIN-DROP (1-800-746-3767) MCI ADVERTISED PLAN MCI One: 12 cents per minute if you spend at least $25 a month. IF Spend less than $25 and the per-minute charge is 15 cents. MCI also bundles wireless, Internet and other services into its package. IF YOU CALL AND ASK None, apparently. "We're not in the promo game at all," a spokesman says. TOLL-FREE NUMBER 1-800-444-3333 ------------------------------ Subject: US Keeps World Waiting on Telecom Deal Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 00:14:43 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) U.S. keeps world waiting on telecom deal BY CAROLYN HENSON Associated Press GENEVA -- The United States put the rest of the world on hold Friday with the deadline looming for a multibillion-dollar deal to bring down the cost of telephone calls. Negotiators delayed by several hours a meeting intended to complete the agreement, hoping for signs that the United States was satisfied with market liberalization offers from other countries. But there was no word from Washington. "We still have to finish our job," said Renato Ruggiero, head of the World Trade Organization, as he headed into the meeting, which finally convened Friday evening. "We have come a very long way. We are not far from a good result but it's too early to be certain." More than 60 countries are negotiating a global pact that would phase out monopolies and restrictions on competition that have allowed telephone companies to overcharge for calls and given them little incentive to improve services. "(There) is a huge prize at stake. It means a massive liberalization of the world telecom market, which (the United States) would be crazy not to grasp with both hands," European Union trade chief Sir Leon Brittan said. U.S. negotiators had no comment as they entered the WTO's lakeside headquarters. The WTO is sponsoring the talks, which conclude by midnight Saturday. Officials in Washington earlier stressed that the United States had no intention of pulling out of the talks, as it did last April when it claimed that other countries had not done enough to open their markets. "We are continuing to make progress. We still have some issues to work out with Japan and Canada but backing out is not an issue," said a U.S. trade official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But there were still fears in Geneva that, under domestic political pressure, the Clinton administration might scale back its offer and risk undoing the whole process. Some American lawmakers were particularly unhappy at Canada's refusal to allow foreign companies to hold majority stakes in their main telephone companies while the United States was offering 100-percent foreign ownership. Mexican and South Korean offers restrict foreign ownership to less than 50 percent, they say. Japan has restricted foreign participation in its main two telephone companies to 20 percent. But a senior Canadian official, while announcing an improvement to the Canadian offer in other areas, said his country would not budge on foreign ownership. He pointed out that while the United States had the world's largest telecommunications market, representing a third of the world's $600 billion annual revenue, Canada's share was just 1.8 percent. "There's going to be no invasion by Canadian companies into the United States," he said. "Whether Washington will decide to ignore economics and business interest and all the work that has been done for political reasons, that is their own decision. But I just don't think so." U.S. industry sources said they believed a deal was close. "The atmosphere right now is that we are going to be able to solve whatever differences are remaining," one industry spokesman said. Telecommunications is one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy, but trade barriers have prevented technological gains from being passed on to the consumer. For instance, it costs an estimated 2 cents per minute to provide a trans-Atlantic phone link -- the same as a local call. Still, European consumers pay about $2 per minute. Customers could gain $1 trillion dollars over 14 years, according to some estimates. The developing world would also gain from improved telecommunications technology. ------------------------------ Subject: US West Wants Online Users to Pay More Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 00:21:58 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) US West Wants Online Users to Pay More By Thomas W. Haines, The Seattle Times Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News OLYMPIA, Wash.--Feb. 14--US West Communications wants Internet users to begin paying phone companies extra money to stay online. Companies providing Internet access say that's just a ploy by the company to make money rather than fix a clogged phone network. US West wants the state Legislature to settle the dispute. A Senate committee hearing Thursday was the latest phase in an increasingly prominent debate over just how much Internet use is bogging down the local phone network. During recent weeks, some people placing phone calls in and around Seattle, especially those connected through a downtown Seattle switching station, have heard "all circuits busy" recordings when trying to place calls. US West is the state's largest local telephone company, with lines to more than 2 million customers. US West and other regional Bell telephone companies have maintained that the increased congestion on their phone networks is caused by Internet users, particularly those using a flat-rate plan offered by America Online, a leading Internet service provider. Internet service providers and other technology companies contend that the phone companies are exaggerating the problems. The dispute centers on claims and counterclaims that so far have not been backed up by definitive data in Washington state. State regulators are encouraging US West to solve the problem quickly. The company says it is spending more than $300 million on the network this year, and quickly adding critical pipelines in and around Seattle. US West is filing weekly reports with the state Utilities and Transportation Commission. But an official there says it is not yet certain exactly what is causing the blockages. Energy, Telecommunications and Utilities Committee Chair Bill Finkbeiner, R-Carnation, described Thursday's hearing as an "educational process" for the committee. It is not clear whether US West or any of the other parties involved plans to propose legislation this session. Some phone companies have made a request that the Federal Communications Commission consider setting rates for users who stay online for long periods of time. Yesterday was the first time US West publicly made its case to state lawmakers. "We are going to have to come up with a different rate structure," said Ed Shaw, a US West attorney. "... Consumers should have a flat rate for a reasonable amount of voice traffic, but if you're going to use it more than that, you pay an increment." Shaw contended that the local phone network, over which Internet traffic is routed, was built to support voice calls lasting three to five minutes. He said that during January the company saw a repeated increase in calls lasting 20 minutes or more, typical of Internet use. A group of local Internet service providers joined Microsoft and the American Electronics Association -- a technology industry trade group -- to counter US West. Garry Myall of Microsoft said fax machines, telephone banking and lower long-distance rates, which encourage more calling, were culprits. A study submitted by a Microsoft lobbyist contends that, if anything, US West and other local phone companies are making money by installing additional phone lines for people using the Internet. Glenn Blackmon, a staff analyst with the state utilities commission, which regulates US West, says he's studied the length of calls during hours when the "all circuits busy" problem seems worst. He says that the calls appear to be shorter in length, roughly two to four minutes -- a finding that he says, so far, contradicts US West's claim that extended calls by Internet users are causing the problem. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 23:17:58 EST From: Danny Burstein Subject: NYS-PSC Orders $109.6 Million Nynex Customer Refund (a hundred million here, a hundred million there, pretty soon we're talking real money.../dannyb) STATE OF NEW YORK Public Service Commission John F. OMara, Chairman Three Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12223 Further Details: (518) 474-7080 http://www.dps.state.ny.us FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATELY 97011/92C0665 COMMISSION ORDERS $109.6 MILLION IN REBATES TO NYNEX CUSTOMERS -$87 Million for Improper Affiliate Transactions & $22.6 Million in Service Quality Rebates- ALBANY, NY --February 12-- The New York State Public Service Commission today ordered the New York Telephone Company (NYNEX) to rebate a total of $109.6 million to customers. The rebates are the result of a settlement in the Commissions investigation into the companys alleged improper dealings with affiliates between 1984 and 1991, and the companys failure to meet certain service quality targets established in the current Performance Regulatory Plan (PRP). The settlement approved today in the New York Telephone affiliates case reflects a reasonable resolution to this proceeding, said Commission Chairman John F. OMara. With respect to the service quality rebates, this Commission will continue to be vigilant in ensuring that New York Telephone meets the targets established for improving the service delivered to its customers. Affiliates Case The affiliates case was instituted by the Commission in 1990 when, during a rate case, it was alleged that ratepayers had been harmed as a result of improper purchasing practices at NYNEX, and that excessive charges had been imposed on New York Telephone by its affiliate, NYNEX Materiel Enterprises Company (MECO), for central office equipment removal services. As a result, a separate proceeding was established to examine these allegations and transactions with other affiliates, as well as questions concerning whether or not NYNEX Information Resources Company (NIRC), an unregulated subsidiary that handled directory publishing for NYNEX and other phone companies, was adequately compensating the company for access to its subscriber lists. The purpose of the proceeding was to determine what, if any, adverse financial effects the companys transactions with these affiliates had on ratepayers. In a November 1996 recommended decision, the administrative law judge in the case, citing questions about the reliability of data underlying the affiliate transactions, found it difficult to support or oppose the settlement agreement. Instead, he recommended continuation of the proceeding to give NYNEX further opportunity to prove that the transactions were reasonable. By approving the agreement today, the Commission chose to follow a different course of action than the judges recommended decision. This case has dragged on for far too long. The Commission believes that the continuation of litigation would not necessarily yield a better result, and that the interests of consumers are best served by concluding this contentious and resource-intensive proceeding with this agreement, OMara said. At the Commissions behest, NYNEX has agreed to a comprehensive restructuring plan that virtually eliminates NYNEXs ability to repeat these types of affiliate transactions, and we believe the agreement fairly compensates ratepayers for the companys actions prior to restructuring. Under the terms of the agreement -- which was signed by the staff of the Department of Public Service, the Department of Law, the Consumer Protection Board and the company -- New York Telephone must refund $53 million plus interest as a result of the companys transactions with NYNEX affiliates, and an additional $30 million plus interest relating to the NIRC transactions. In addition, the agreement requires NIRC to transfer its subscriber listings database and its management back to a regulated subsidiary of NYNEX which, in turn, must provide access to its subscriber listing information to all competing directory publishers, including NIRC, on the same terms. This will ensure that ratepayers of New York Telephone receive the maximum benefit for the companys ability to provide this information. The $87 million in rebates must be included as a one-time credit on customer bills within 90 days. Refunds will be distributed pro rata to all business and residential customers. $22.6 Million in Service Quality Rebates The Performance Regulatory Plan (Plan) approved for New York Telephone in September 1995 included a system of positive incentives and negative penalties for service quality improvement. The Plan froze basic rates for at least five years (September 1, 1995 through August 31, 2000), reduced many other residential and business rates and charges, and eliminated touchtone charges. It also established service improvement targets that become increasingly tougher each year, exposing the company to greater penalties for failure to improve service quality. In November of 1996, the Commission found that NYNEXs performance after the first full year of the Plan (September 1995 - September 1996) warranted $72.9 million in penalties. After granting waivers in the amount of $617,000, the Commission ordered $62.3 million in rebates, and a decision on the remaining $10 million in penalties was withheld pending consideration of another waiver request and a staff investigation of NYNEXs claims of miscalculation of certain performance data. Today, the Commission denied the companys waiver request and, on the basis of staffs review, found that while there were some miscalculations of reported data, the penalties were warranted and therefore ordered the $10 million to be refunded to customers within 30 days. A separate incentive segment of the Plan was designed to allow the company to earn up to $26.5 million in incentives for improving service quality in the companys worst performing areas during calendar year 1996. Specifically, the company could earn up to $17.5 million for improving residential customers accessibility to its business offices, plus another $9 million for reducing the number of instances of weakspot customer trouble report rates statewide and the number of lines that are out-of- service for more than 24 hours in the Greater Metro Region (Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, Bronx, and Northern Manhattan). The company was unable to meet the $9 million targets, and therefore today the Commission ordered it to rebate the full amount, plus interest, to customers within 30 days. With respect to the $17.5 million incentive for improving customer accessibility to business offices, the Commission denied the companys request to extend the reporting period at todays meeting. As a result, the company was ordered to rebate to customers $3.6 million of the $17.5 million incentive plus interest. Recent Service Quality Trends Show Improvement Even as the Commission directed New York Telephone to rebate $22.6 million in penalties for its earlier record of poor service quality, it observed that the companys results for the fourth quarter of 1996 improved on 16 out of 16 measures when compared to the fourth quarter of 1995. The Commissions focus on service quality and the companys willingness to devote the necessary resources have produced significant results, Chairman OMara noted. I commend the company for its efforts and challenge them to continue. http://www.dps.state.ny.us/PRESS/97011.DOC-2.t ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: 904 Split Finalized Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:35:21 -0500 Organization: lincs.net Reply-To: jcropper@nospam.lincs.net On the tenth, the Florida PSC finalized the 904 split. Here is the summary: We find that of all the options we have considered on this record, Option 4 best serves all the customers in the present 904 NPA code. Therefore, we find it appropriate to order that Option 4 (three-way split with Tallahassee retaining 904, Jacksonville LATA getting one new code [850], and Daytona Beach LATA another new code [???]) be implemented to relieve the 904 NPA code exhaustion. We will inform Bellcore that two new NPA codes are needed to implement our plan. The permissive dialing period should begin as soon as possible and extend for approximately one year in order to permit end-users to prepare for the change. We find that it is reasonable for the industry to implement permissive dialing under Option 4 by June 30, 1997. Mandatory dialing, therefore, shall be implemented by June 30, 1998. Based on the foregoing, it is, therefore, ORDERED by the Florida Public Service Commission that each and all of the specific findings set forth in the body of this Order are approved in every respect. It is further ORDERED that the 904 NPA code relief shall be implemented by means of the relief plan described as Option 4 in the body of this Order. It is further ORDERED that permissive dialing shall be implemented by June 30, 1997. It is further ORDERED that mandatory dialing shall be implemented by June 30, 1998. It is further ORDERED that this docket shall be closed. By ORDER of the Florida Public Service Commission, this 10th day of February, 1997. /s/ Blanca S. Bays BLANCA S. BAYS, Director Division of Records and Reporting This is a facsimile copy. A signed copy of the order may be obtained by calling 1-904-413-6770. ------------------------------------ John Cropper, Webmaster voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 Legacy IS, Networking & Communication Solutions 609.637.9434 P.O. Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:jcropper@lincs.net http://www.lincs.net/ http://www.lincs.net/spamoff.htm ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: 913 Splits to 785 on July 20th! Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 17:43:46 -0500 Organization: lincs.net Reply-To: jcropper@nospam.lincs.net From the Kansas Corporation Commission: News Release February 12, 1997 New area code to be 785 TOPEKA, KANSAS - The Kansas Corporation Commission today announced the assignment of the new area code to be implemented in a portion of the 913 calling area. The new area code is 785. The assignment of the 785 area code fulfills the Commission's relief plan addressing the rapidly approaching problem of running out of available phone numbers in the 913 area code. The relief plan geographically split the existing 913 area and established an additional area code for Kansas. The new 785 area code will become operational at 12:01 a.m. on July 20, 1997. This will initiate a permissive dialing period. During the permissive dialing period, a consumer placing a call to the new area code can dial either the old 913 area code or the new 785 area code and the call will be completed. This period will provide additional time for business and residential customers to prepare and adjust to the new area code. Based on current projections the permissive dialing period will extend 14 months to October 1, 1998. A 60-day intercept message period will follow the permissive dialing period. During this period, a consumer dialing the wrong area code will receive a recorded message informing them of the new 785 area code. The availability of three-digit exchange prefix numbers within the 913 area code is projected to be exhausted in the fourth quarter of 1998. As of January 1996, 648 of the 792 possible exchange prefix numbers had been assigned. The splitting and assignment of a new area code within the geographic area currently served by the 913 area code is necessary to meet future demand for new telephone numbers. Based on current projections, the relief plan will meet the demand for new telephone numbers through the year 2005. The Commission relief plan splits the 913 area code along an existing LATA (Local Access Transport Area) boundary line. The LATA line runs south through Atchison and Jefferson counties and continues along the western edge of Johnson, Miami and Linn counties. LATAs were formed at the time of the breakup of the Bell System in 1984 and are geographic areas within which regional Bell operating companies are authorized to provide service. The existing 913 area code will be retained in the area east of the LATA line, and the new 785 area code will be assigned to the LATA area which extends west to the Colorado state line in the northern half of the state. While both LATA areas have approximately the same number of access lines, the eastern LATA area, which includes the metropolitan Kansas City area, has significantly more incoming interLATA calls, requiring ten-digit dialing. The plan preserves seven-digit dialing for local calls. The new area code number was assigned by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator which is responsible for the assignment and monitoring of telecommunication number requirements through North America. In December 1996, the Commission approved an industry planning group recommendation geographically splitting the existing 913 area code and establishing an additional area code in Kansas. The recommendation was the result of a six-month effort by KCC staff, representatives from various segments of the telecommunications industry, and CURB (Citizens Utility Ratepayer Board). The relief plan recommendation met three criteria established by the Commission: minimize disruption of telephone number assignment for the largest possible number of people, preserve seven-digit dialing in the Kansas City metropolitan area, and provide relief for a minimum period of eight to ten years from the date of implementation. The Commission, along with the various telecommunication providers in the state will continue to provide consumer information on the implementation of the new area code. (JC's note: Missouri is supposed to be co-ordinating the 816 split with Kansas' 913 split, but no word is yet available from either SBC or Missouri on the 816 split.) ------------------------------ John Cropper, Webmaster voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 Legacy IS, Networking & Communication Solutions 609.637.9434 P.O. Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:jcropper@lincs.net http://www.lincs.net/ http://www.lincs.net/spamoff.htm ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V17 #43 *****************************