More of this to follow, I sure> Allegiance Telecom Announces Industry's First Implementation of 'Electronic Bonding' With Bell Atlantic in New York Providers' Operations Support Systems are Linked
Online and in Real-Time; <>
NEW YORK, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ via
NewsEdge Corporation -- In an event that
is expected to provide a major breakthrough
in enabling customers to change local
service providers swiftly and seamlessly,
Allegiance Telecom, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALGX),
today announced that it has achieved the
first implementation of electronic bonding,
between a Regional Bell Operating Company
and a competitive local exchange carrier
(CLEC), for facilities-based local services.
Today's announcement culminates a
six-month joint effort between Allegiance, a
CLEC, and Bell Atlantic to design, implement
and test an electronic gateway linking their
operations support systems (OSS) so that
local phone customers in New York can
more rapidly switch from one company to
another.
The gateway allows Allegiance to process
orders electronically for customers
switching from Bell Atlantic to Allegiance
and to confirm initiation and provision of
service online and in real-time. In addition
to processing customer orders more quickly,
the interface enables facilities-based
competitors like Allegiance to process
orders more efficiently and reliably.
Allegiance expects to utilize the electronic
gateway as a template to achieve
electronic bonding with Bell Atlantic in other
jurisdictions where Allegiance plans to offer
service, including Massachusetts, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
and the District of Columbia.
"For a business like ours, which is
emphasizing customer service above all, the
speed, efficiency and effectiveness with
which we can sign up customers and initiate
service are of paramount importance," said
Royce Holland, chairman and chief
executive officer of Allegiance Telecom.
"The achievement we announce today is an
historic milestone in making the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 a
marketplace reality. I would especially like
to congratulate the New York State Public
Service Commission and Bell Atlantic for
working with us to achieve success in a
relatively short time period."
Jack Goldberg, president of Telecom
Industry Services, said: "We are delighted
that Allegiance has recognized the ability of
Bell Atlantic's operations support systems to
help competitors process orders quickly and
accurately. We are eager to work with
other competitors to achieve similar results
as we build a robust wholesale business to
serve this important client base in New York
and elsewhere across our region.
"Resellers have been sending us orders
electronically for some time now. We
encourage facilities-based competitors to
work with us to develop customized
electronic systems that will enable them to
process Unbundled Network Element (UNE)
orders quickly and reliably," said Goldberg.
"By building our industry-standard
interfaces, we can provide easy access to
our OSS and enhance our capability as a
wholesale provider."
The lack of electronic bonding between
facilities-based local carriers has been
widely recognized as the principal
bottleneck in realizing the competitive local
service marketplace envisioned by the
Telecommunications Act of 1996. Allegiance
and Bell Atlantic believe their
unprecedented arrangement will become a
nationwide model for enhancing the ability
of competitive carriers to process customer
orders more swiftly and accurately, thus
helping to eliminate the principal impediment
to robust local telecommunications
competition on a national scale.
Allegiance said the initiative with Bell
Atlantic is a major step forward in its
business plan, which relies upon promptly
provided high-quality customer service as
one of its prime drivers. Among other
things, it allows Allegiance electronically to
process the orders of customers switching
from Bell Atlantic to Allegiance and to
confirm initiation and provision of service
online and in real-time. The arrangement
replaces the common practice throughout
the telecommunications industry, which
involves multiple data entries and faxes
between CLEC's and regional Bell
companies, first to request the switch to
Allegiance, then to confirm it.
Allegiance said trials of the system
indicated that electronic bonding is the key
to providing the following major benefits:
-- Saving approximately 20 business days
on average in processing a
customer order (through the operations
support systems of Allegiance
and the local phone company) and initiating
service.
-- Significantly increasing the volume of
customers that can be switched
to Allegiance service each month.
-- Eliminating many opportunities for
service-affecting outages during the
switch of a customer's service from one
local provider to another.
In addition to helping Allegiance accelerate
service provisioning and installation, this
advanced interface positions the company
to expand the arrangement in the future to
include other operations support systems
functions, such as pre-ordering, billing and
maintenance. As a result, the level of
service Allegiance can offer its customers
should be significantly enhanced.
Allegiance has achieved successful
development and testing of electronic
bonding with Bell Atlantic in large part
because of Allegiance's advanced,
integrated, operations support systems,
which feature state-of-the-art systems and
equipment to provide back office services
(corporate backgrounders on the vendors,
DSET and MetaSolv, are available). Many
other telecommunications carriers,
Allegiance said, are working with outmoded
legacy systems that cannot provide the
necessary level of interface to achieve
bonding with incumbent providers. With the
necessary technology now in place,
Allegiance said the timeframe for achieving
electronic bonding with other incumbent
local phone companies can be cut
significantly.
"Electronic bonding should help us
significantly accelerate the pace at which
we are able to provision and install access
lines," said Holland. "In addition, we
anticipate using the systems that we have
developed and tested in New York as a
basis to implement electronic bonding in
other Bell Atlantic states as well as with
other incumbent local exchange carriers.
"I have always believed that in order to
have true local telecommunications
competition on a large scale, a customer
must be able to change local service
providers almost as quickly and seamlessly
as changing long distance providers. Today
marks a giant step in making this a reality. "
Allegiance Telecom offers businesses a
complete package of telecommunications
services, including local, long distance,
international calling, high-speed data
transmission and Internet services.
Allegiance is targeting 24 metropolitan areas
in the U.S. with its "one-stop shopping"
approach. The company's web address is:
www.allegiancetele.com.
Certain statements in this press release
constitute "forward-looking statements"
within the meaning of federal securities
laws, and the Company intends that such
forward-looking statements be subject to
the safe harbors created thereby. The
words "believes," "expects," " estimates,"
"anticipates" and "will be" and similar words
or expressions identify forward-looking
statements made by or on behalf of the
Company. These forward-looking
statements reflect the Company's views as
of the date they are made with respect to
future events and financial performance,
but are subject to many uncertainties and
factors which may cause the actual results
of the Company to be materially different
from any future results expressed or implied
by such forward-looking statements.
Examples of such uncertainties and factors
include, but are not limited to, the extent
to which the Company can achieve
"electronic bonding" with ILECs, the
Company's ability to timely and effectively
provision new customers and the Company's
continued access to necessary capital. The
Company does not undertake any obligation
to update or revise any forward-looking
statement made by it or on its behalf,
whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise.
*Please note: At a press briefing today,
Allegiance Telecom, Inc. and Bell Atlantic
made a formal announcement about this
arrangement. If you would like to hear a
replay of the briefing, please call
888-203-1112, confirmation code 596377 --
the replay will continue until January 14th.
SOURCE Allegiance Telecom, Inc.
/CONTACT: Media, Claire Dunnett or John
Henderson, 212-843-8054, Investors, Tom
Lord, 404-812-4785 or Susan Howard,
404-525-7740, all for Allegiance Telecom,
Inc.; or Media, Maureen Flanagan,
212-395-3519, of Bell Atlantic/ /Web site:
allegiancetele.com (ALGX)
[Copyright 1999, PR Newswire] |
