A mini tie up on the information highway p. 56

By: George Garneau

THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS industry is on the verge of approving options that would dramatically boost the number of abbreviated-dial numbers available for callers to access services by telephone, but one objection is holding up the works.
N11 numbers such as 911, 411 and 611 are easy to dial and remember. The problem is that there are too few ? only five numbers available per market ? and almost everybody thinks more are needed.
So the Information Industry Liason Committee, a voluntary consortium of 600 local phone companies, long distance services and enhanced service providers, has recommended four codes as the most feasible: three digits either preceded or followed by the pound sign (#) and four digits preceded or followed by pound.
The four-digit codes provide over 900 numbers, the five-digit ones over 9,000.
The proposal would create national uniformity, or at least a voluntary standard for phone companies to use in setting up abbreviated dialing for businesses seeking to provide services by phone, said Walt Weyand, BellSouth Telecommunications marketing department manager and co-chair of the IILC task force on abbreviated dialing.
The lone objector, he said, is Jan Masek, a Los Angeles entrepreneur.
In objections filed with the Federal Communications Commission and IILC, Masek says the IILC gave short shrift to his proposal to offer services to callers who push the star button twice (**) on push-button phones.
"I don't intend to hold up the process of abbreviated dialing," Masek said in an interview.
"But it's not being done . . . . It is a lie. They have not recommended anything," he said.
"Mention of the four codes in the findings section [of the IILC's final document] does not constitute a commitment to implement any of them," he said. "With a back room deal, the phone companies forced this thing through without discussing in depth the four codes."
Masek accused the IILC of stonewalling tactics "to delay, frustrate and exhaust all attempts to bring innovation" on abbreviated dialing.
He urged the FCC to take over telephone numbering, saying, "The process is manipulated and new entrants on the information superhighway become its drive-by shooting victims."
He said his company, Telaccess, wants to provide "basic telephony" services ? which he declined to name except to say they are not information products ? through Star Star, a term he said Telaccess has trademarked.
One IILC document called ** "technically feasible" but "too limited."
"We did not think it was one of the feasible solutions," Weyand said of Masek's plan, declining to elaborate.
He said IILC cannot close out the issue until Masek's objection is resolved.
IILC, formed at the request of the FCC and ruled by consensus, is scheduled to consider the objection at its Sept. 14 meeting in Seattle.