ACSI poised to offer local phone service
Business First of Louisville - by Rick Redding
If you thought the battle waged by long-distance telephone companies for your business was intense, wait until the floodgates open in the looming battle for local telephone service.
Telephone users will have a choice of local telephone carriers in early 1997, opening the door to a wave of competition for that vital service.
It's all a result of the Federal Telecom munications Act, signed in Feb ruary. Eventually, Louisville customers may be choosing from dozens of local phone companies.
So far, four companies are set to gain approval from the Kentucky Public Ser vice Commission to offer local phone service.
The companies are: American Com muni cations Services Inc. of Baltimore, Md.; Annox Inc. of Pleasant View, Tenn.; Southeast Telephone Co. of Pikeville, Ky.; and Inter media Communications Inc. of Tampa, Fla.
Those companies have interconnection agreements with BellSouth Corp. in Kentucky to access its existing network, said BellSouth regional director Mike Seebert.
A spokesman for Southeast Telephone, however, said the company does not intend to enter the Louisville market.
The company positioned to be first to offer a local phone service alternative is ACSI. And ACSI is ready to stake its claim to a share of BellSouth's monopoly on local telephone service, said Craig Chason, Kentucky general manager.
The last hurdle ACSI must address before offering local service is the filing of a tariff agreement with the Kentucky Public Ser vice Commission. That document details the rates a company will charge.
Chason said ACSI lawyers are preparing the tariff document, and that rates have not been finalized. The document should be filed within 30 days.
PSC attorney Amy Dougherty said the agency could approve ACSI's tariff filing within 30 days of its receipt.
As part of the approval process, the company is required by the PSC to put cash equal to 6 percent of its anticipated revenue from the service into an escrow account controlled by the PSC, said Dougherty.
Once it gets the PSC's nod, ACSI will begin aggressively marketing its local service product, said the company's senior development manager, Jonathan Schneider.
But he added that ACSI will target its sales to businesses - not residential phone users.
Schneider predicted that by the first of March, ACSI will be signing up local service customers. He said ACSI is in the process of hiring salespeople to call on area businesses.
Schneider said ACSI also will offer local service to long distance carriers, such as MCI and Sprint, which would then be able to offer the local service capability to their business customers. (See related story above.)
"Our corporate philosophy is to be a carrier's carrier," ACSI's Chason said. "We work hand-in-glove with long-distance carriers that have a sales force in the city to help plan for their customers."
Customers stand to benefit, Chason said, as intense competition kicks in - just as it has with long-distance, Internet-access and cellular phone services.
BellSouth Corp. welcomes the local-service competition, Seebert said. The same legislation that allows local-service competition also enables BellSouth to enter the more lucrative long-distance business.
BellSouth plans to file a petition with the Federal Communications Commission in mid-December, requesting permission to offer long-distance service, Seebert said.
Seebert envisions a future in which customers will demand one-stop shopping, purchasing from one company a series of services including local phone service, cellular service, Internet access, long-distance connection and even cable television.
"I think you'll see a packaging and bundling of services. . . . It's going to mean lower prices to the consumer," Seebert said.
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