Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA18822; Wed, 18 Mar 1998 23:52:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 23:52:21 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199803190452.XAA18822@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V18 #39 TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Mar 98 23:52:00 EST Volume 18 : Issue 39 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Century to Purchase 19 Wisconsin Exchanges From Ameritech (Tad Cook) Cable Modem Scams and Ripoffs (Mike Hughes) Telecom and Technology Centric US Cities (Nathan Brophy) Collect Call Fraud (Sam Biller) Pagers Now Charging the Universal Service Tax - err - Fee (D.Burstein) 612, 651 Split Problems(Tad Cook) 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. 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Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Century to Purchase 19 Wisconsin Exchanges From Ameritech Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 13:57:41 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) MONROE, La.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 12, 1998--Ameritech and Century Telephone Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: CTL), have entered into a definitive agreement under which Century will purchase the assets of some of Ameritech's local telephone operations and directory publishing business in northern and parts of central Wisconsin. The cash transaction is for approximately $225 million and is expected to close in the fourth quarter, pending regulatory approval. The sale will include the property and equipment that serves 68,000 customers, or 85,000 telephone lines, as well as directory publishing operations for nine telephone directories. The properties to be acquired are adjacent to Century's existing operations. With the acquisition, Century will serve 330,000 telephone lines in Wisconsin. Century is the third largest local telephone company in the state. The 21 communities served by the 19 exchanges include: Ashland, Bayfield, Cornell, Hurley, Ladysmith, Saxon, Stanley, Superior, Washburn, McAllister, Marinette, Oconto, Oconto Falls, Peshtigo, Baraboo, Berlin, Green Lake, Mazomanie, North Freedom, Princeton and Redgranite. `This agreement is another major step in Century's efforts to aggressively expand our presence in Wisconsin's rural and smaller urban communities,` said Glen F. Post III, Century's president and chief executive officer. `It supports our geographic clustering strategy, with Wisconsin being our largest state in terms of telephone lines served. `Century will combine these new territories with our existing service areas in neighboring communities, enabling us to enhance network efficiencies and provide our new and existing customers with the highest quality service possible,` Post said. Customers will see no change in their area codes, telephone numbers, or local calling areas, and customer rates for local telephone service will remain the same, under terms of the agreement. `The sale truly is a win-win opportunity for both companies and shareowners,` said Ellen M. Gardner, president of Ameritech Wisconsin. `Customers in these areas will benefit because of the proximity of these exchanges to Century's operations. That allows Ameritech to more effectively focus our resources on our remaining customers, which creates value for our shareowners.` The exchanges that Century will acquire represent less than five percent of Ameritech's telephone operations in Wisconsin, which now include 2.2 million lines and 6,500 employees in the state. Customers who will be served by Century will be receiving more information in the mail. In addition, both companies have established a special hotline at 1-800-316-7765 to respond to questions from customers. Century (NYSE: CTL) is the 10th largest local exchange company, based on number of telephone lines, and the 10th largest cellular company, based on population equivalents owned, in the U.S. Century provides a full range of communications services including local, wireless, long distance, voice mail, data services and Internet access to more than two million customers in 21 states. Headquartered in Monroe, LA, Century (www.centurytel.com) is recognized as a leader in serving small urban and rural markets with high-quality, affordable services. Century currently has 245,000 lines in 96 Wisconsin exchanges. Century has 835 employees in Wisconsin and maintains regional wireline headquarters in La Crosse. Ameritech (NYSE: AIT) serves millions of customers in 50 states and 40 countries. Ameritech provides a full range of communications services, including local and long distance telephone, cellular, paging, security monitoring, cable TV, Internet services and more. One of the world's 100 largest companies, Ameritech (www.ameritech.com) has 74,000 employees, 1 million shareowners and more than $25 billion in assets. In addition to historical information, this release includes certain forward-looking statements that are subject to uncertainties that could cause Century's actual results to differ materially from such statements. Such uncertainties include but are not limited to: the effects of ongoing deregulation in the telecommunications industry; the effects of greater than anticipated competition in the Company's markets; possible changes in the demand for the Company's products and services; the Company's ability to successfully introduce new offerings on a timely and cost-effective basis; the risks inherent in rapid technological change; the Company's ability to effectively manage its growth, including integrating newly acquired operations into the Company's operations; and the effects of more general factors such as changes in overall market or economic conditions or in legislation, regulation or public policy. These and other uncertainties related to the Company's business are described in greater detail in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 1997. FACT SHEET Ameritech and Century Telephone Enterprises, Inc., have entered into a definitive agreement under which Century will purchase the assets of Ameritech's local telephone operations and directory publishing business in 21 communities covering 19 exchanges in northern and parts of central Wisconsin. The sale, for approximately $225 million in cash, will include all property and equipment in the exchanges. The 21 communities include: Ashland, Bayfield, Cornell, Hurley, Ladysmith, Saxon, Stanley, Superior, Washburn, McAllister, Marinette, Oconto, Oconto Falls, Peshtigo, Baraboo, Berlin, Green Lake, Mazomanie, North Freedom, Princeton and Redgranite. The following telephone exchange prefixes are affected: (715 area code) 239, 373, 392, 394, 395, 398, 399, 532, 561, 582, 644, 682, 685, 732, 735, 779, 893. (920 area code) 294, 295, 361, 566, 834, 846. (608 area code) 355, 356, 522, 795. Sixty-eight thousand customers will be affected by the sale. This represents 85,000 telephone lines and corresponding telephone numbers, 500 pay phones, 23 switching offices and equipment, 37 buildings and nine telephone directories. The sale represents less than 5 percent of Ameritech's total phone lines in Wisconsin. Fifty Ameritech employees work in these areas. Ameritech anticipates offering affected employees jobs elsewhere within the company based on their qualifications. Century also will be hiring in these areas and affected Ameritech employees will be actively considered by Century. Regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Justice are required before the sale can be completed. All customers currently receiving local phone service from Ameritech in the 21 communities will become Century customers once the sale is approved and the transaction is finalized. Approval is expected near the end of this year. Both companies also will review details of the sale with the Public Service Commission (PSC) of Wisconsin. Local service rates in the 21 affected communities will remain the same as Ameritech's at least until the year 2000. Century expects to provide initial financing through its committed credit facilities. While permanent financing plans will be determined once further analysis of the impact of non-strategic asset dispositions is completed, management intends, subject to market conditions, to implement permanent financing consistent with its goal of achieving a long-term debt-to-capital target ratio of 50 percent. Century has provided quality telephone service in Wisconsin communities for more than 25 years. It has been expanding its presence in Wisconsin and the rest of the country. Last year, Century acquired Pacific Telecom (PTI) and Pecoco, Inc., providers of local exchange services in Wisconsin. Century's Wisconsin presence covers (not including the transaction with Ameritech) 245,000 telephone lines in 96 exchanges, 835 employees and a regional wireline office in La Crosse. Century is the 10th largest local exchange company in the U.S. based on number of telephone lines, and the 3rd largest local exchange company in Wisconsin. Century offers a range of communications services, including local exchange, wireless, long distance, voice mail, data services and Internet access to more than 2 million customers in 21 states. Its market niche is serving rural and small urban territories. Customers in the areas being purchased by Century will be receiving more information in the mail. Customers will keep their existing telephone numbers and will not have to do anything differently regarding their existing service. In addition, both companies have established a special hotline at 1-800-316-7765 to respond to questions from customers. http://www.businesswire.com ------------------------------ From: Mike Hughes Subject: Cable Modem Scams and Ripoffs Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 16:20:36 -0800 Organization: gte.net The cable modem internet access device is characterised as hundreds to even thousands of times faster than conventional analog POTS modems. However, many companies in the industry (namely, GTE) are taking advantage of the hype to deliver sub-standard and over-priced services to people that have heard the hype but don't really know what it's like to use a high-bandwidth device to access the internet. GTE is a prime example of this. Their service, WorldWind, is physically limited by the modem's setup to 17kilobytes/sec, **barely** faster than typical ISDN service, which achieves 15-16kbytes/sec regularly. GTE is taking advantage of the fact that typical windows/MacOS users, use to 2-3kilobytes/sec downloads from their telephone lines, jump for joy to see speeds like that. In their default "tech" response to questions about the pathetic speeds of their service, they reply with comments such as "Our system is engineered to provide constant performance" and "Even ISDN can't compete." http://www.psilord.com is my homepage that I've setup to protest GTE's horrible service. It has full details on the service and competing services. The above two quotes are such a load of bull. GTE also offers cable modem service that is designed to compete with 64k isdn and 56k dialup modems! This is insanely stupid! The new technology was not intended and should not be implemented to compete with yester-decade's technology. GTE is taking advantage of the hype and truths of the industry to inject their lies and undelivered promises into the homes of many clueless users that have no other option but to succumb to GTE's grasp on the telecommunications empire around many cities (namely, Thousand Oaks, California and Clearwater, Florida and the surrounding areas). GTE is even aware of the fact that their modems are slow as hell! On their homepage, they had a large file available for download to "show off" the "speeds" of their modems. The file was originally 8 megabytes or so (it was a large tiff file) and said "this file would take a fraction of the time with a GTE worldwind cable modem!". However, it still took 10 minutes to download with the fastest speeds that GTE offered on their modems. They have recently changed this graphic to 1.3 megabytes, to avoid the embarassment and questions araised by the fact that their *cable modems* take a curiously long time to download such a relatively small file. @Home and RoadRunner have no limitations on the speed of their modems. Compared to 17kilobytes/sec on GTE's service, they deliver upwards of 300kilobytes/sec! Yes, that's a meg every three seconds! *THAT* is how the cable modem architecture was meant to be used, not GTE's flimsy 17kilobytes/sec. When you're selecting cable modem services for your home or office, be aware of the ripoffs that exist in the cable modem industry. Beware of un-competitive and exploitive services! They exist. The cable modem can be taken advantage of to the user's disadvantage. Be aware. If you would like to read more and do something about this issue if you're using GTE's service (or if you're just a concerned internet citizen), go to http://www.psilord.com to read all about this cheap ripoff. I would like to know what you people think about this issue. Sorry for the cross-posting, but i've been battling with this for months. Email me at wxh@gte.net or go to my website to respond. Thanks a lot for all your support so far! Mike Hughes wxh@gte.net http://www.psilord.com ------------------------------ From: Nathan Brophy Subject: Telecom and Technology Centric US Cities Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 12:03:18 -0600 Organization: INTERNET AMERICA I am a college student majoring in MIS. I am currently doing research to identify the top telecom and technology centric metropolitan areas in the US. I know of Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley but I am looking for other less known metropolitan areas that also can be considered top high bandwidth and high technology cities. I am also interested in identifying various businesses that are drawn to and depend on these metropolitan environments. I would really appreciate if anyone could direct me to any helpful trade magazines, prior research, or interesting relevant articles that will assist me in identifying the top telecom and technology centric metropolitan areas in the US. Thank you, Nathan Brophy brophy@airmail.net nbrophy@post.smu.edu http://post.smu.edu/~nbrophy "Consciousness is the annoying time between naps" unknown * Denver Broncos Super Bowl XXXII World Champions! * ------------------------------ From: Sam Biller Subject: Collect Call Fraud Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 19:58:31 -0500 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. I just received a phone bill from Bell Atlantic - MD which has a single collect call on it billed as a service to ILD TELESERVICES. The call was $63.14 for 39 minutes. The call originated in Florida and I'm in Maryland. This is totally outrageous that this company charged over a $1.60/minute for this call with no disclosure to the person accepting the collect call. I spoke with Bell Atlantic and they told me there is nothing they can do about the charge and that I am responsible for this rip-off. I would appreciate any information as to what I can do about this charge and what recourse I have, if any. Thanks, Sam Biller sbiller@iname.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 21:54:22 EST From: Danny Burstein Subject: Pagers Now Charging the Universal Service Tax - er - Fee And let's not wince words. It is a tax. Here's the word from Skytel. Similar announcements have been made by other paging companies: (original text at: www.skytel.com; follow the menu from there) Universal Service Fund Fee In the Universal Service Order released May 8, 1997, the Federal Communications Commission established new federal universal service support mechanisms consistent with the Communications Act of 1934, as amended. The money raised will be used to wire schools, libraries, and rural health-care centers for telecommunications. The Commission required all telecommunications carriers that provide interstate telecommunications services, providers of interstate telecommunications, and payphone service providers to contribute to the federal universal support mechanisms. Beginning March 1998, SkyTel will include a nominal charge of 1.5% of the previous month's charges excluding taxes and finance charges. In other words, the charge listed on the March 1 invoice will be 1.5% of the February invoice. Within the detail of the invoice a line item will appear as "FCC Universal Service Fund Fee". These funds will be remitted to the Federal government as part of our contribution to the Universal Service Fund. This amount may vary on occasion as the FCC makes adjustments. Your voice can make a difference For more information, visit the FCC web site (www.fcc.gov). If you'd like to let the FCC know your opinion on the ruling, please send an email to fccinfo@fcc.gov, call 202-418-0200 or send a letter to: Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street, NW Washington DC 20554 ------------------------------ Subject: 612, 651 Split Problems Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 22:14:20 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) US West, Rival Say Twin Cities, Minn., Area Code Plan Unworkable, Costly By Martin J. Moylan, Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Minn. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Mar. 12--US West and Frontier Communications say they will have to split seven Twin Cities communities between two area codes if they're to meet the Public Utilities Commission's July target for establishing a new area code for the metropolitan area. When the commission ordered the creation of the new 651 area code for St. Paul and points east last December, it decreed that the border with communities retaining the 612 code follow municipal lines. That had never been done before, protested US West, adding that the maneuver would be technically risky and extremely expensive. And now Frontier says following municipal lines would also be a big headache. Both filed their arguments with the PUC Wednesday. The PUC will take comments from communities involved and other interested parties until March 18. A hearing and a decision by the commission is expected on March 31. The Baby Bell's proposed rejiggering of the dividing line for the two area codes would affect about 5,000 customers. About 1,900 customers in Lino Lakes, 1,200 in Shoreview and 425 in New Brighton would remain in the 612 area code -- while most of their fellow citizens land in the 651 area code. The prefixes going to the 612 code would be: 717, 780, 783, 784, 785, 786, 792, 795, and 957. About 900 customers in Eagan with 707, 808, 882, 890, 894, and 895 prefixes would remain in the 612 area code. Most of the community would get the 651 area code, though. About 500 customers in Apple Valley with 405, 452, 454, 456, 681, 683, 686, 687, 688, 726, 727, and 905 prefixes would remain in the 651 area code. The rest of Apple Valley would be in 612. Frontier wants to follow phone exchange lines in Rosemount and Farmington, putting most of Rosemount and all of Farmington in the 612 area code. The two communities are now scheduled to be in 651. Customers with 423, 322, 460 and 463 prefixes would be affected. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V18 #39 *****************************