NEW PHONE SERVICE PLANNED FOR AREA

Ameritech has unveiled plans to offer local and long-distance telephone services to residential customers in the Cape Girardeau, Jackson and St. Louis areas.

The company has filed its expansion plans with the Missouri Public Service Commission. Pending PSC approval, Ameritech plans to start marketing its new telephone service in the three areas early next year.

The move will expand Ameritech's communications offerings and marks the first time the company will offer local phone service to customers in Missouri.

Ameritech already provides more than 500,000 people in the Illinois portion of the St. Louis metro area with local and long-distance telephone service.

"The expansion represents a big win for our Missouri consumers," said Ron Cook, a public affairs spokesman for Ameritech in its St. Louis office.

Customers will have the option of purchasing telephone services with the conveniences of Ameitech's consolidated bill, said Cook.

Thomas E. Richards, executive vice president of Ameritech's communications and information sector, said that "with this initiative, customers will start to have a choice of some of the most complete and innovative packages of communications services in the country."

Ameritech's array of communications offerings for the Cape Girardeau, Jackson and St. Louis markets will include local phone service, long-distance, cellular, paging and wireless data.

The company currently provides cellular, paging and security monitoring services to thousands of customers in the region. The company has 16 retail stores and more than 150 dealer locations to serve customers in Missouri.

Ameritech's interconnection agreement with Southwestern Bell Telephone, the incumbent local service provider in Missouri, was approved by Missouri regulators earlier this month. Ameritech received state permission to operate in Missouri as a competitive local exchange carrier earlier this year.

Ameritech, headquartered in Chicago, serves millions of customers in 50 states and 40 countries.

Ameritech is the second company to announce new telephone services to the area this year. Digital Teleport Inc. of St. Louis, which is installing fiber optic cables along Interstate 55, announced in August that it will compete with Southwestern Bell for local telephone services in the area. No immediate timetable has been established, but Digital Teleport has already completed fiber optic cable installation in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas and much of southwest Missouri.