On a hot Tuesday afternoon late last June in Stillwater, Okla., about 100 people gathered in a converted high school gym serving as the town library to hear Southwestern Bell Corp. square off with Brooks Fiber Co. over a town project.
The regional Bell operating company and the upstart competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) - now part of WorldCom, Inc. - were pitching competing bids for a fiber-optic data and voice network that would connect a town alliance of schools, medical facilities, municipal buildings and businesses to each other and to the Internet.
At stake was a share of the money to be made from usage charges along with $500,000 cash for coming up with the winning plan. But the kicker was a five-year contract to become the town alliance's local telephone company ' a job SBC had for some 80 years.
After the competing carriers made their pitches, an official announced the city request for proposal team recommended that Brooks get the job, citing the value such competition would bring.
According to minutes of the meeting, Wayne Petit, an SBC engineer, protested: "I take issue with the fact that competition lowers rates."
"I question if this approach is anticompetitive," added Larry Brown, SBC area manager of external affairs.
Months later, Brown says he believes the playing field was unfairly tilted toward CLECS as a way to entice competition to Stillwater's third-tier market.
But City Manager Carl Weinaug, a chief architect of the alliance plan, says Stillwater would have offered the contract to SBC if its proposal had been better than Brooks'.
"It was clear watching this what the difference was between dealing with the Bell and dealing with the CLEC," Weinaug says. "It was, 'Here's what's good for you,' as opposed to, 'Here's what you asked for, and here's what we can do to help.' "
Further evidence of SBC heavy-handed tactics came in the form of a letter threatening to "formally proceed with our protest" if Stillwater signed a deal with Brooks. Brown says legal action "is still a possibility."
Weinaug's take on the whole incident: "You say you're for competition, but you really don't know why until you experience something like this."
