MCI Welcomes BellSouth to the Competitive Long Distance Market

But Regulators Still Have More Work To Do to Promote Competition

BACKGROUND: Following Federal Communications Commission approval, BellSouth today announced plans to enter the long distance markets in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. MCI already offers the industry's first "any-distance" service, The Neighborhood, to consumers in those states and 31 others, and has long offered competitive long distance services across the country.

The following statement should be attributed to James L. Lewis, Senior Vice President for Law and Public Policy:

"MCI supports the entry of any company, including BellSouth, into the highly competitive long distance market. As a company born of competition, MCI understands that it only sharpens our ability to serve our customers. Our success in signing up more than 1 million consumers for our combined local-long distance service, The Neighborhood, in these states and elsewhere is dramatic evidence of the benefits that competition brings consumers -- lower rates, better service and innovation."

"While our initial success with The Neighborhood has surpassed expectations, regulators must continue the hard work of forcing open local markets. Just as local competition finally begins to take hold, BellSouth and its sister monopolies are attacking the ability of companies such as MCI to provide it by seeking to undermine requirements to provide network connectivity at cost-based rates. Ironically, BellSouth uses the wholesale services of other companies to provide its competitive long distance service but argues it is unfair to make it provide wholesale services to others so they can provide local services."

"The fragile local competition that exists today will not flourish if regulators do not preserve the availability of the Unbundled Network Element platform and push wholesale network rates to cost so that the promise of the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 can be realized."