At the launch of the National Network in March, its founder coyly admitted to aspirations of becoming a public telephone operator – six months later Michael Davis has modified such hopes – but is just as ambitious for the organisation to grow. Davis now says that National is unlikely to compete head on with either British Telecommunications or Mercury Communications, but it is targetting some of their niche markets. He is reluctant to say what these are, arguing that if he did, British Telecom and Mercury would look hard at their offerings in those markets that he is carving out. Although it’s difficult to imagine that the two public operators are unaware of National’s activities, Davis gives the same reason for not disclosing the number of subscribers on the network – apart, of course, from the 30,000 Post Office users. However, he outlined the profile of typical subscribers to which he resells the Post Office’s spare capacity. Mostly, they are medium to large-sized businesses with split sites and therefore a need to make lots of national, long distance telephone calls. The services on offer are the same as those at launch – VoiceCall, DataCall and VideoCall. But although the data services were heralded as posing the greatest threat to British Telecom, directly competing with its X25 Packet SwitchStream and ISDN capabilities, Davis says that it is the voice service which has created the most interest so far. He attributes this to pricing and simply the fact that people like having a choice. Internal telephone calls on the National Network are charged at a local rate whatever the distance and, says Davis are 70% cheaper than British Telecom’s long distance B rate charge. External calls are 40% cheaper than the B rate. At present, National has seven break out points, where the network connects with the British Telecom’s public telephone local loop, and it expects to have 20 by the end of next year. Although this would cover 90% of the UK business community with an alternative public telephone service, National says it will remain an extra feature, offered to customers that mainly use the network for internal long distance business calls. Marketing director Barry Shakespeare reckons that leasing a British Telecom connection to the National network, just to make use of the public long distance facility would not be economically viable. So National will continue to operate quite happily under the resale licence. The opposite to break out, break in capabilities, in the form of a dial-up access from British Telecom phones, are also being added to the network, but these too will primarily be for the benefit of those that originally connected to internal use of National Network services. Shakespeare says the service will probably be used by employees in the field phoning an office which is connected to the network. Other uses will be for general access to National’s value added services such as voice mail and enhanced fax facilities. The link between the local telephone exchange and the subscriber’s phone is still the major problem for any fixed line operator setting up in opposition to British Telecom. Only public telephone operators are authorised to provide the local connection, and, according to Shakespeare, the cost for a dedicated leased line from Mercury or British Telecom is high. Partly for this reason, National’s pricing is based on fixed price structure, which is why it is only economical for companies that make many calls to opt for the service. The problems of equal access, as it is called, are being considered by the government in its Duopoly Review, and in anticipation of a relaxation of the rules, National is developing microwave capabilities which would enable it to provide radio links from its exchanges to customer’s premises. But UK trunking is not the only area of interest for the company, for despite the name, National’s latest move is into the international arena with a promise to offer first data and then voice facilities to 21 countries. The move follows a deal with Telecolumbus’ WorldCom -for

merly ITT Worldcom – which operates a network of undersea cables and satellites. Telecolumbus now has a 50% share in National Network, giving the UK company potential access to Telecolumbus’ cable television companies in Germany, France and Switz-erland. More excitingly, Telecolumbus is also involved in the Hermes Project, a consortia of telecommunication companies that is looking at the possibility of laying fibre lines along European railway tracks. WorldCom, formerly known as ITT WorldCom, is based in New York and has a UK subsidiary in London. The company’s network was formed out of a merger between ITT’s and Western Union Corp’s private lines, with added investment from Telecolumbus.

Real jackpot

In the UK, Commercial Cable Company has also been added. WorldCom now manages private circuits for large corporates, mostly between the US and the UK, although via the US it also accesses many major world business centres. Using WorldCom’s network, National will be be offering services to 21 countries by making use of spare bandwidth through a connection to WorldCom’s FM Centre in London. Initially this will be data only, but in 1991, following the Office of Telecommunications’ recommendations, Davis expects to be offering the real jackpot international voice services. – Sonya McGilchrist