SBC continues to gain ground in long-distance market.

HOW MUCH SBC CORP.'S entry into the long-distance market in Arkansas in late 2001 hurt AT&T will be merely academic if SBC's announced acquisition of AT&T gains the approval of federal regulators.

For now, all that is certain is that Southwestern Bell Communications Services Inc., San Antonio-based SBC's long-distance subsidiary in Arkansas, had $44.1 million in assessable revenue in the state last year. That's 80 percent of the $54.6 million that AT&T claimed in 2002. AT&T has not made its assessable revenue public for the past two years.

Southwestern Bell's share of the long-distance market has grown from $37.4 million in 2003 and $17.5 million in 2002. In the absence of comparable figures available from AT&T, Southwestern Bell tops the annual list of the state's largest interexchange carriers for the second year.

MCI Corp., the former Worldcom, maintained its No. 2 ranking among long-distance carriers through three subsidiaries operating in Arkansas. Its assessable revenue was down a smidgen--less than 1 percent--while an increase of almost 140 percent pushed WilTel Communications LLC of Tulsa to the No. 3 spot.

A newcomer on the interexchange list, which is limited to carriers with at least $1 million in assessable revenue, is E. Ritter Long Distance of Marked Tree. It reported $1.1 million in revenue last year--barely enough to make the list but a 153 percent increase from 2003. E. Ritter also operates three local exchange carriers--in Marked Tree, Harrison and Jonesboro--that reported a combined $5.3 million in assessable revenue--a 22 percent increase over 2003.

Local Exchange Carriers

SBC's Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. continues to dominate the list of local exchange carriers, although assessable revenue was flat in Arkansas last year and the carrier's total number of phone lines in the state continued its downward trend.

Nos. 2-4 on the list of incumbent and competing local exchange carriers (ILECs and CLECs) were unchanged from last year: CenturyTel of Monroe, La; Alltel Corp. of Little Rock and MCImetro Acess Transmission Services LLC of Ashburn, Va. MCImetro's revenue grew 20 percent last year--a pittance compared with the more than 1,400 percent it grew between 2002 and 2003.

No. 5 Sage Telecom Inc. of Allen, Texas, which had not made its revenue public since 2002, reported $12.4 million in assessable revenue last year. That was a 1 percent decline over the two-year period.

A newcomer to the list is KMC Telecom V Inc. of Bedminster, N.J. After reporting zero revenue in Arkansas in 2003, KMC claimed $6.9 million in 2004. The company is a specialized telecom that does nothing but provide local access numbers to dial-up Internet service providers such as America Online and MSN.

Number of Residential Phone Lines Declining

                    4-year change      2004      2003

Southwestern Bell
Residential Lines         -23.91%   508,029   529,340
Business Lines            -23.43%   226,986   236,249
Total Line,               -22.00%   806,054   840,041

CenturyTel *
Residential Lines         -11.54%   195,089   204,070
Business Lines             -6.04%    50,883    50,793
Total lines                -9.27%   252,170   260,978

Alltel Corp. **
Residential Lines         -10.12%    82,032    85,083
Business Lines             51.16%    68,404    67,807
Total Lines                 6.30%   171,143   173,711

                       2002      2001        2000

Southwestern Bell
Residential Lines   560,571   632,185     667,631
Business Lines      314,133   274,363     296,450
Total Line,         874,707   988,460   1,033,382

CenturyTel *
Residential Lines   212,940   209,849     220,539
Business Lines       54,093    52,065      54,154
Total lines         278,637   271,371     277,926

Alltel Corp. **
Residential Lines    87,832    90,458      91,271
Business Lines       56,150    51,943      45,254
Total Lines         169,136   167,305     161,002

* Totals of all seven local exchange carrier subsidiaries
operating in Arkansas

** Total of Alltel Arkansas Inc., an incumbent local exchange carrier,
and Alltel Communications Inc., a competing local exchange carrier.