FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 2, 2000

NEWS MEDIA CONTACT: John Winston (202) 418-7450

Washington, D.C. - Today, the Enforcement Bureau (Bureau) announced that it has entered into a consent decree with Global Crossing Telecommunications, Inc. (Global Crossing) which terminates the Bureau's investigation into possible sanctions for Global Crossing's non-compliance with Commission rules implemented under Section 276 of the Communications Act. Those rules generally require long distance carriers to compensate payphone owners for certain types of calls made from their payphones, including ``1-800'' calls.

As part of the consent decree, Global Crossing (formerly Frontier Communications Services, Inc.) has agreed to identify the ``1-800'' numbers for which it is providing compensation, and those for which it is not, with each quarterly payment to payphone owners. Global Crossing has also agreed to identify the long distance carriers to which it transferred those ``1-800'' calls for which it does not provide compensation. Global Crossing has further agreed to make a voluntary payment of $80,000 to the United States Treasury in the event it does not succeed in its appeal of the Commission's prior ruling that the company violated the payphone compensation requirements.

In April 2000, the Commission affirmed prior staff rulings that Global Crossing had violated the Commission's rules by refusing to compensate certain payphone owners. The Commission went on to state that it was troubled by Global Crossing's ``self-help actions'' in refusing to pay, and directed the Bureau to investigate whether separate enforcement action should be taken against the company. The Bureau's subsequent investigation resulted in the consent decree announced today.

File No. ENF-00-0003

Enforcement Bureau Contact: John Winston at (202) 418-7450 David Strickland at (202) 418-0977