NYNEX Officer Testifies Before House Subcomittee on Energy and Power

June 27,1996

CONTACT: Jamie DePeau 202-336-7825

NYNEX Officer Testifies Before House
Subcomittee on Energy and Power

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- NYNEX Science and Technology President, Casimir S.
Skrzypczak, today appeared before the United States House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Energy and Power urging the speedy adoption of one-call
legislation.

One-call legislation would require owners of underground facilities, like
telephone cables, to provide information about where these facilities are
located and anyone who excavates to provide notice of their intent to dig.

An alarming number of network outages are caused by fiber cable cuts. In
fact, a recent study completed by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry
Solutions (ATIS) concluded that over half of all facilities-based network
outages were the result of fiber cable dig-ups, and 51% of these occurred
because the excavator either failed to notify the facility owner or provided
inadequate notification, stated Mr. Skrzypczak. One-call legislation will
further improve the reliability of the communications in this country and
should be adopted as quickly as possible.

Although forty-six of the fifty states have some form of one-call legislation,
the rules and enforcement vary widely from state-to-state.

Where effective one-call legislation and one-call centers are in place,
substantial improvement in the problem has occurred. Reductions of up to 50%
in the number of fiber cable dig-ups have been reported in locations with
active cable damage awareness/prevention programs. In contrast, 20% of the
national total of dig-ups occur in Texas -- a state with no one-call
legislation, commented Mr. Skrzypczak in his testimony.

Mr. Skrzypczak is responsible for the management of the NYNEX corporate
research and development programs, including the operation of NYNEXs Science
and Technology Center. He serves as the Chairman of the Alliance for
Telecommunications Industry Solutions and chaired the Network Reliability
Steering Committee associated with Federal Communications Commissions Network
Reliability Council.

NYNEX is a global communications and media company that provides
a full range of services in the northeastern United States and
high-growth markets around the world, including the United Kingdom,
Thailand, Gibraltar, Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland,
Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The Corporation is a leader in the telecommunications, wireless communications,
cable television, directory publishing
and entertainment and information services.

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