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To: SteveG who wrote (4876)	4/1/1998 1:09:00 AM
From: SteveG	Respond to of 12468

<A> MCI to PUC: 'Pricing is to Blame for Lack of Local Phone Competition' HARRISBURG, Pa. -- In a hearing before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), MCI informed commissioners that excessive pricing for competitors' access to the public telephone network is largely to blame for Pennsylvania consumers' inability to choose a local service provider other than Bell Atlantic. Jay Young, regional director of MCI public policy, told the PUC that until such prices are lowered, residential and small business customers will not see the benefits of competition envisioned by Congress in the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, including choice, lower prices, innovation and better customer service. MCI is calling on the Commission to reevaluate the permanent rates that competitors have to pay Bell Atlantic to lease piece-parts of the local telephone network, called unbundled network elements, required to serve local customers. While Bell Atlantic charges residential customers an average monthly "retail" rate of about $20, it charges MCI a "wholesale" rate of $23.84 per month just to lease an unbundled loop -- the line that connects a customer's home to the MCI network. Young told the PUC that prices for this and other services competitors must acquire from Bell Atlantic must be lowered to cost before real competition can take hold in Pennsylvania. "The status of local telephone competition in Pennsylvania is dismal, at best," Young told the PUC. He said while MCI has acquired several hundred mid- to large-size business customers using its own local service networks in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the past two years, these high rates have allowed Bell Atlantic to maintain 98% monopoly control of more than a million customers in the state. "If competition is going to develop in Pennsylvania, new entrants must be given the means to fairly gain more than the meager two percent market share that they have struggled to accumulate thus far," Young added. "This is a fundamental economic obstacle that affects all competitors -- not just MCI. The PUC must reset these rates at levels based on Bell Atlantic's true, forward-looking costs as soon as possible." Inaction by the PUC will produce predictable results at the expense of the state's telephone customers. Without the ability access the public phone network at a fair price, competitors will postpone or redirect local network construction to states where these investments are allowed a fair business opportunity. "Competition isn't just a consumer issue," Young said. "It's also a business issue as well. Competitors will invest where it makes sense -- and right now the costs of providing service in Pennsylvania are non-sense." MCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a leading provider of local-to- global communication services to business, government and residential users. The company's fast-growing portfolio of advanced data, Internet and IT services now accounts for nearly a quarter of MCI's $19.7 billion in annual revenue. MCI operates one of the world's largest and most advanced digital networks, connecting local markets in the U.S. to more than 280 countries and locations worldwide. MCI has agreed to merge with WorldCom, one of the world's fastest-growing communications companies. The merger, which is expected to be completed in mid-1998, will create MCI WorldCom, a company uniquely positioned in the U.S. local and long distance markets as well as the global data and Internet markets.

To: SteveG who wrote (4876)	4/1/1998 1:11:00 AM
From: SteveG	Respond to of 12468

<A> AT&T Seeks Lower Prices for Michigan Phone Customers LANSING, Mich. -- Reaching an impasse in its negotiations with Ameritech Michigan for a reduction in intrastate access charges, AT&T today filed a complaint with the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) requesting it order the local monopoly to reduce by approximately $41.5 million those connection charges (Primary Interexchange Carrier Charges or PICCs) Ameritech is charging long-distance companies and their customers. "Ameritech's access charges are excessive and unreasonably discriminatory and should be reduced," said Ray O'Connell, AT&T vice president for public relations. "In fact, Ameritech's access charges in Michigan are much higher than in any of the other states in its five-state territory, and consequently, Michigan residence and business customers are contributing a disproportionate amount, 52 percent, to Ameritech's regional intrastate access revenues even though they make up only a quarter of the customers. "Furthermore, these excessive access charges penalize the very same customers who have already contributed more than their counterparts in Ameritech's other service areas for similar services," continued O'Connell. "And as a result of these inflated access charges, Michigan long-distance customers are likely to be subject to higher charges than Ameritech's customers in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin without receiving any additional benefit," added O'Connell. "This amounts to discrimination against Michigan long-distance customers and must inevitably tend to limit the benefits of competition for long-distance service." In its formal complaint to the MPSC, AT&T said the commission should order Ameritech to make two adjustments to its calculation of intrastate access charges in Michigan. First, Ameritech should be required to cap those rates at levels which, in the aggregate, produce no more than Michigan's fair share of Ameritech's total intrastate access revenue. And secondly, AT&T requested the MPSC to order Ameritech Michigan to modify its application of these intrastate access charges so that all local toll* and long-distance companies are treated the same. "We're optimistic that the Michigan commission will rule in our favor and order Ameritech to reduce those access charges," said O'Connell. "Once the commission does that, we'll pass those savings on to our Michigan long- distance customers." The Michigan Public Service Commission has until the end of September to issue an order in AT&T's complaint. * Local toll calls are those between neighboring communities, typically 16 to 50 miles apart; such calls also incur time and distance charges.

To: SteveG who wrote (4876)	4/1/1998 12:08:00 PM
From: Bernard Levy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12468

Dear SteveG: You have to keep in mind that at 38GHz, the signal to noise ratio (SNR) is significantly affected by rain or in the case of paths affected by foliage, wind conditions. So the signal to noise ratio changes with wheather conditions. Thus plugging in measured SNR figures in Shannon's formula would be rather meaningless. This is unlike copper, where a very complete database of attenuations as a function of loop lengths and frequencies is available. Note also that within a cell, under LOS conditions, attenuation increases as the square of the distance to the receiver. So capacity is distance dependent. I believe however that OFDM schemes have been implemented for some satellites in the Ku band (around 12-18GHz), so that OFDM may not be totally far out for LMDS. Another idea which has been tested in Japan consists in using adaptive modulation patterns, where depending on the prevailing SNR conditions, the modulation pattern is varied between QAM (requires high SNR) and QPSK (low SNR). The need for high frequency circuits comes in from the fact that if you are processing a signal with a 100MHz bandwidth, and need to perform an A/D coversion, the A/D converter will typically need to operate at about 1GHz to achieve a sufficient bit accuracy. Note that several non GaAs technologies are just around the corner: SiGe and SOI. Best regards, Bernard Levy