Baby Bell's Miami landing rings in phone competition

By BOB TRIGAUX

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 18, 2000

Aboard the starship Enterprise, Captain Kirk gets an urgent message from Scotty, his engineering chief.

Scotty: Captain, we've injected new competition into the telecommunications market. Telecom prices have dropped dramatically for business customers, long-distance customers and wireless phone customers. I dunno what else we can do!

Kirk: I won't compromise. Warp speed, Mr. Scott.

Scotty: But Captain, are you daft? You mean we're going to . . . the final frontier?

Kirk: You bet your dilythium crystals, Scotty. We're about to bring competition to -- Tampa Bay's local residential telephone market.

Almost five agonizingly slow years after Congress passed a sweeping law to revitalize the telecommunications industry, Florida's local residential phone market is poised to get its first dose of significant competition.

In a state long dominated by such local residential phone monopolies as BellSouth and Verizon, a new regional Baby Bell just arrived.

SBC Telecom, part of the giant Texas-based SBC Communications, last week began offering local residential phone service in the Fort Lauderdale/Miami markets. SBC promises to deliver similar service to Tampa Bay area consumers by the second quarter of 2001.

For decades, Verizon (under the former GTE name) controlled the bay area's local residential phone market. SBC's arrival in South Florida and, soon, here in Tampa Bay must feel like enemy troops massing on the borders of Verizon's homeland.

SBC says it's going to rattle Verizon's defenses.

Verizon says it's ready to rumble -- if SBC really intends to compete for local residential service.

For Tampa Bay area consumers, the clash between Verizon and SBC will not be over which lumbering giant offers local phone service for a few cents less.

The real war's about bundling. Who's going to offer the best bundle of telephone services for the best price?

A bundle is a one-price monthly package of phone services that includes local service, a handful of such extra services as call waiting and caller ID, plus cheap long-distance rates. Fancier one-price bundles would include choices of voice mail and high-speed DSL Internet access.

"It's never been our intention to come into new markets and replicate the services of the incumbent phone companies," says SBC spokesman John O'Connor. Like any new player entering a market, SBC wants to undercut BellSouth and Verizon prices.

"Our bundled packages will cost about 15 percent less," O'Connor says.

In South Florida, SBC is pushing a "Phone Solutions" package at $24 a month that comes with local phone service, a mix of 13 features (call waiting and caller ID among them), plus long-distance service of 6 cents a minute (with no monthly fee) at any time of day.

Unlike the typical smaller competitor, SBC will not simply resell local services provided by BellSouth or Verizon. SBC is using many of its own switches and facilities and leases fiber-optic network access from a subsidiary of FPL Group.

Verizon will counter with its "Big Deal" bundles that include local phone service (priced between $9 and $11), a choice of either a $9 or $16 package of phone features (similar to SBC), plus various long-distance packages such as 60 minutes of GTE long-distance service for $5 a month, and 10 cents per minute after the first hour.

"We are not shy to compete, but we want the same degree of accountability," says Verizon spokesman Bob Elek in Tampa. "If there's a level playing field, we're confident we will come out in good shape."

Can't decide? (Do these guys sound suspiciously like Bush and Gore?) No rush. Just be glad Tampa Bay finally has more choices.

If the Verizon or SBC bundles don't grab you, maybe the quality of customer service will?

Don't get your hopes up. Neither phone company is a service leader, according to a recent J.D. Power and Associates national customer satisfaction survey of local residential telephone providers.

SBC-owned Ameritech and Southwestern Bell ranked below or just above the national average. SBC's SNET (Southern New England Telephone) and Pacific Bell ranked high in satisfaction.

GTE ranked below average in the survey. But Bell Atlantic ranked above average. The survey took place before the companies merged to form Verizon.

In July, Ohio regulators ordered SBC's Ameritech to spend $8.7-million to make amends to customers as a result of service lapses.

Last December, Florida regulators, citing a history of substandard service by GTE, demanded formal hearings to examine why GTE has failed for years to meet minimum service standards.

Perhaps when Verizon and SBC compete head-on in 2001, both will improve.

Just remember: Come next spring, Tampa Bay's local residential phone service will no longer be ruled by just one 800-pound gorilla.

By then, we'll have two. After five years, that's not warp speed. But it's progress.

- Robert Trigaux can be reached at (727) 893-8405 or trigaux@sptimes.com.

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