Southwestern Bell offers long-distance service

SBC Southwestern Bell began offering long-distance telephone service in Missouri on Friday, less than a month after receiving permission to do so from the Federal Communications Commission.

"This was a really key component in the product line that we feel we have to offer," said Jan Newton, the company's Missouri president. "Customers have told us for a long time they would like one telecom provider that offers all the telecom products."

Known best for providing local phone service, the division of San Antonio, Texas-based SBC Communication Inc. has already started offering long-distance service in four other states: Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

A 1996 federal law allows SBC and other local-phone monopolies to enter the long-distance business if they can show that their local-phone service is open to competitors.

Under the law, SBC must sell competitors access to its local lines at wholesale rates. SBC said it has spent more than $3 billion to open its local-phone markets to competitors.

The FCC granted the company permission to begin offering the service on Nov. 16 in a unanimous vote. But some commissioners expressed concern that SBC hadn't fully made its high-speed DSL Internet access service available for resale, which they said might be required by the law, and pledged to revisit the issue.

Available as of 6 a.m. on Friday, SBC Long Distance offers consumers flat rates of 10 cents per minute for out-of-state calls and 12 cents-per-minute for in-state long distance calls. A variety of packages, designed for both consumer and business customers, are also available.

Marsha Haskell, director of external affairs for the company's Southeast Missouri region, said the biggest benefit to area customers would be having several communications services on one bill.

"And it gives them another choice for long distance service," she said Friday.

SBC Southwestern Bell is Missouri's largest local telephone service provider, with about 3.7 million lines, or 73 percent of the total. Competitors currently service about 295,000 lines.

In addition to SBC Southwestern Bell, SBC Communications also owns SBC Pacific Bell, SBC Ameritech and SBC Southern New England Telephone. The company also has a 60 percent interest in Cingular Wireless, a joint venture with BellSouth.

Staff writer B. Ray Owen contributed to this report.