The Pacific Bell arm of Pacific Telesis Corp, the phone company that serves California and Nevada, has been granted a one year amnesty by the US Federal Communications Commission to enable the carrier to bundle its Project Victoria multiplexor charges with its basic service tariff – but the rule in the antitrust settlement that forbids the regional Bells from equipment manufacturing still puts the whole project in doubt. The decision by the FCC to waive its 1980 ruling which stipulates that customer premises equipment must be provided by carriers through separate subsidiaries only and then on a non-tariff basis, has angered manufacturers of similar equipment. Project Victoria is aimed at small business customers and residential users and allows them to install a multiplexor to split one telephone line into two voice or five data lines. Pacific Bell has been sanctioned to bundle the multiplexor with a regulated transmission service for a one year trial period but the FCC refused to cede to the company’s request to classify the multiplexor as integral to the network and not as customer premises equipment. The Commission said it would consider the results of the trial and make a final judgement when Pacific Bell made its commercial offering. But David Wibbelsman, Pacific Bell vice president for marketing said that Unfortunately, the FCC’s decision combined with the federal district court’s orders regarding manufacturing make the cost of continuing with the project too great a risk. The group has therefore decided to shelve the whole thing, but says that it will make the design and implementation specifications of the service available to outside manufacturers.
