Press Release

    HARRISBURG, Pa. – The Public Utility Commission (PUC) today approved the application of Level 3 Communications to provide competitive local telecommunications services to residential and business customers within Bell Atlantic’s and GTE’s territories.

    The company received authority to operate as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) under the state’s 1993 telecommunications law, called Chapter 30, and the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. Both laws are designed to open the local phone market to competition.

    The PUC determined that the company had sufficient technical, financial and managerial resources to provide local telephone service. The commission granted the certificate of public convenience conditioned on the company’s compliance with all provisions of the Public Utility Code.

    CLECs compete with local phone companies by packaging services and offering customers pricing plans tailored to their needs. Typical business services include direct inward dialing, call forwarding and transfer, call pickup and intercom. Residential services include, for example, call waiting, caller-ID, and speed dialing. CLECs may also sell cellular phone service.

    Companies like Level 3 Communications reach their customers in several ways. They can use the existing phone network, in which case they purchase services from the local phone company at wholesale rates approved by the PUC and then resell them to their customers. Some decide to build a new network and install telephone lines to connect to their customers. Others use a combination of the methods by leasing parts of the existing system and interconnecting the telecommunications equipment of the two companies.

    Level 3 Communications will be able to begin providing local telephone service after it has filed approved tariffs with the commission.

    The PUC today also approved an interconnection agreement between Level 3 and Bell Atlantic. An interconnection agreement establishes the rates, terms and conditions under which Level 3 will interconnect to Bell’s network in order to provide basic local telephone service.

    Level 3 is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska.

    For additional press releases or more information about the PUC, please visit our Internet home page at http://puc.paonline.com.