Background: A three-year independent test of "operations support systems" (OSS) in 13 of the 14 states in Qwest's local service territory was released today with Qwest failing to clear two of the major test requirements. OSS are the fully automated systems that telephone carriers use to serve their customers. Federal law requires that the Bell monopolies provide competing carriers with nondiscriminatory access to OSS.
The following statement should be attributed to Jim Lewis, WorldCom Senior Vice President of Public Policy:
"The unfortunate reality is that this test process has not yielded the promised and necessary result - systems proven ready to perform at commercial volumes. For example, Qwest's OSS remain deficient in the critical area of change management - the processes to ensure that any changes in Qwest's systems can be seamlessly incorporated by competitive carriers. Any Qwest claim that it is ready for long distance approval based on this test clearly is premature.
"Additionally, Qwest still does not offer competitors cost-based rates for network access based on the FCC's "total element long run incremental cost" (TELRIC) pricing standard, which recently was validated by the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately, Qwest's inflated rates remain an obstacle to local competition throughout its territory.
"We hope that state and federal regulators alike recognize that Qwest must still clear these two key obstacles - OSS and pricing - before it can gain long distance approval in its service territory."
