Southern California Edison (SCE) has been providing certain wholesale telecommunications services for as long as four years, but the recent formation of a new division within the company called Edison Carrier Solutions (ECS) has given the utility's activities in this field a boost.

"We've taken these fragmented business segments at Edison and integrated them into ECS," explained Corey Ford, ECS vice president and general manager, -in an interview with UT Digest. "We've been doing network fiber construction and dark fiber leasing for three or four years. We continue to do that. About a year and a half ago, we decided to get into the active carrier business. We filed with the state of California for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to become a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier [CLEC] - though that's called a 'Competitive Local Company' in California."

Ford, who worked for US West for 16 years and also served with GST Telecom, said ECS now offers a broader range of carrier-to-carrier services. "We provide transport - active lit capacity - to other carriers .... We are lighting circuits forcarriers-DS-1, SONET, OC-3, OC-12, OC-48, and, through DWDM, we can provide individual wavelengths to customers." Target customers include other CLECs, interex-change carriers (IXCs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs), commercial radio service providers - cellular, PLS, and SMR - and cable and satellite television companies.

ECS began with SCE's existing fiber-optic network and added to it, so that it now has almost 2,000 route miles of fiber through southern California, including fiber in important patches of that region that are outside SCE's electric service territory, such as Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Anaheim. "Our goal is to utilize the existing fiber routes we have now, our rights-of-way and the rights-of-way of other utilities to build a truly ubiquitous network connecting hundreds of central offices. We hope to be complete by the end of next year, with about 3,000 route miles," said Ford.

"There will be hundreds of access points which will allow other carriers to come and meet in this marketplace," Ford continued. "It will obviate the need for other carriers to build their own fiber. As you know, other carriers like NorthEast Optic Network are doing something similar; we're building a dense network in a metropolitan area. We believe what we're doing is much more substantial in the [Los Angeles] metropolitan area than what any other company has done in the country."

The company has targeted an area of some 55,000 square miles, extending east from Los Angeles into the "Inland Empire," including such towns as Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Mira Loma, Rialto, Colton, Fontana, and Grand Terrace.

ECS has already collocated with Pacific Bell and GTE, regional incumbent carriers with which the company hopes to compete for a share of the wholesale carrier market. The firm has collocated with a total of 20 other carriers' central offices; by the end of this year it hopes to be in 75. The firm has no plans to offer any retail telecom services, but alongside the fiber network the company is building substantial wireless (digital microwave) infrastructure as well.

ECS generally keeps its financial figures pretty close to its chest. "It's a very substantial investment we're making here in southern California," was all Ford would say about how much SCE has put into its new telecom division.

In January, the utility telecom was in the spotlight because of a deal with RCN Corp., a leading East Coast cable TV and Internet provider with a penchant for partnering with electric utilities. However, unlike the company's joint ventures with Washington, D.C. utility PEPCO and Boston Edison, the deal with ECS does not involve the creation of a joint venture to offer facilities-based telephone, cable TV, and Internet service, in keeping with the utility telecom's decision to stick to the wholesale market.

"RCN is one of many customers we have," explained Ford. "There has been some confusion. We are not involved in a partnership or venture with RCN. We are a supplier and RCN is a customer. We are doing three things - building a separate fiber-optic network for them which they own, as a general contractor; hanging their fiber on our distribution poles in towns where they achieve a franchise ... and a transport agreement which is important to our lit capacity business.

To the extent RCN needs to take traffic off their network and into the PSTN, we will serve as an interexchange carrier."

"We are extremely pleased to begin working with Southern California Edison, whose wire and cable network expertise and knowledge of the Los Angeles market will be of great help to us," said RCN Chairman and CEO David C. McCourt, according to a January press release. "Southern California is the second largest market in the country, right behind metropolitan New York. This agreement advances our schedule by nearly a year to begin providing homes in the greater Los Angeles area with RCN's advanced telecommunications services."

"Southern California is one of the world's most important telecommunications markets," agreed SCE Chairman, President & CEO Stephen E. Frank, in a simultaneous statement. "Expediting new entrants here is a major objective of our recent regulatory charter."

"It's very important, but it's only one deal," Ford emphasized. He noted that the company has also signed significant deals to build fiber for Electric Lightwave, Inc. (ELI), the subsidiary of Citizens Utilities, and GTE.

Ford is confident of the future market for bandwidth in ECS's target territory. "We see demand for telecommunications in the metropolitan area, and believe there's going to be lots of demand for bandwidth between cities as well," he said.

For more information, contact: Edison Carrier Solutions, Alan Llorens, manager of external affairs.
Tel: (626) 302-2912. E-mail: llorensa@sce. com

©2000 Southern California Edison