Agenda Date:  December 27, 2000

Item Number:

Docket:   UT–001992
Company Name:  AT&T Communications of the Northwest

Staff:   Betty Erdahl, Policy Research Specialist 
 David Dittemore, Telecommunications Engineer 
 Glenn Blackmon, Assistant Director – Telecommunications

Recommendation:

Grant AT&T Communications of the Northwest a waiver of the Commission’s Order 
in Docket UT-001275, to delay the implementation of permissive eleven digit 
local dialing in the Seattle area to February 1, 2001.

Discussion:

On September 28, 2000, in Docket UT-001275, the Commission ordered that 
permissive eleven digit dialing be implemented in the Seattle area for local 
calls, no later than January 1, 2001.  The docket was opened in response to a 
customer petition.

AT&T Communications of the Northwest (AT&T) has notified the Commission that 
abnormal workload will not allow completion of all work necessary to satisfy 
the requirements of the Commission Order in Docket UT-001275.

AT&T asserts three issues complicate the normal translation work necessary to 
comply with the order.  The complications are:

  1) AT&T needs to engineer, input and activate changes in excess of two 
hundred fifty three (253) Screening Indexes and six hundred twenty eight (628) 
Normalized Office Codes (NOCs), without customer impact.

  2) AT&T must examine customer records to find “special” classes of service.  
In those cases, additional re-routes and translations may be required, to 
prevent customer complaints.   The company estimates that it will require three 
full-time translation engineers six weeks to complete this task.

  3) AT&T has been required to perform additional translation work in 
connection with Rate Center Consolidation in Whatcom County.   This project was 
required by the Commission in conjunction with Number Conservation, and 
implemented December 11, 2000.

The consumer who initiated the requirement will not be affected by this waiver.

Conclusion:


Staff recommends a one month waiver in the requirement to implement 11-digit 
dialing in the Seattle area be granted, from January 1, 2001 to February 1, 
2001.