SBC expanding long-distance service in California, Nevada

Monday, Dec. 30, 2002 | 10:33 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

The Federal Communications Commission has approved a request to allow SBC Communications to provide in-state long-distance service in California.

SBC, long known in California as Pacific Bell and in Nevada as Nevada Bell, serves 75 percent of California and has spent the past three years fulfilling state and federal requirements so that it can compete in the state's $15 billion-a-year long-distance market.

"Pacific Bell has met all the relevant requirements for long-distance entry," FCC Chairman Michael Powell wrote in a decision this month.

The FCC voted 3 to 1 to allow SBC to begin offering long distance beginning today in California, despite findings in September by state regulators that although SBC met federal regulations the company failed to meet three of the four requirements for offering long distance within the state.

This month, PUC Administrative Law Judge Jacqueline Reed proposed additional safeguards to make sure rival companies will be able to compete. With those measures, Reed said SBC ought to be allowed into the market.

In its ruling the FCC said that California is free to set up safeguards to ensure that SBC is on a level playing field with its competitors, but it cannot override federal authority to grant companies approval to provide long distance.

For years SBC has been trying to convince state and federal officials that its local phone market is truly competitive, according to criteria listed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. One provision on the 14-item checklist compiled by Congress is that competitors have access to phone lines and other technology to provide their services.

In September, the PUC found that SBC had met 12 of the 14 items on that checklist, but this month the FCC found that the company met all of them. The commission also found that the company was in compliance with the telecommunications act.

SBC also won approval from state utility commissioners in Nevada on Dec. 17 and the company expects to file for federal long distance approval for Nevada in early January. SBC provides local phone service in Nevada outside of the Las Vegas area, where Sprint is the main local phone company.