FYI.
---------------------- Forwarded by Mona L Petrochko/NA/Enron on 03/16/2001
08:05 PM ---------------------------


Mona L Petrochko
03/16/2001 06:31 PM

To:   Fred Enochs/Enron Communications@Enron Communications, Geoffrey
Allen/Enron Communications@Enron Communications, Gunnar Frey/Enron
Communications@Enron Communications, Nicole.La@Enron.net, David
Koogler/Enron Communications@Enron Communications, Paul Puchot/Enron
Communications@Enron Communications, Shirley Sidler/Enron
Communications@Enron Communications, Brian Bradford/Enron
Communications@Enron Communications, David Reinfeld/Enron
Communications@Enron Communications, Tom Madaras/Enron
Communications@Enron Communications
cc:   Kristina Mordaunt/Enron Communications@Enron Communications, Debra
Bailey/Enron Communications@Enron Communications, Sue
Nord/NA/Enron@Enron, Lara Leibman/NA/Enron@Enron, Eric
Benson/NA/Enron@ENRON, John
Neslage/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT

Subject:  Interconnection Agreement Update

Letters to the ILECs Initiating Formal Negotiation Process

We have submitted letters to Qwest for OR, WA, UT and CO.  We already have
a Qwest Representative assigned to us for CO and UT.  A letter will go out
Monday (Mar 19) for SBC for TX and IL.  Letters will be drafted for PA, DC,
NY, NJ and MA for Verizon and will go out within the next week.  We expect
to have a letter go out to Bell South for GA, FL and LA early next week as
well.  We are meeting with counsel for SBC-CA and NV and expect to send a
letter for CA early next week.  The letter for NV will go out the following
week, as our CLEC filing will be delayed one week.  The only other state
where we need to check with Verizon about how they wish to proceed is VA,
as the licensing process is expected to take longer and Verizon may not
negotiate with us until we are closer to receiving approval.  We will
update that information early next week.

Review of Interconnection Agreements/Meeting with Outside Counsel

Lara and I will be meeting with all of our outside counsel over the next
two weeks to review agreements that they have forwarded to us and to
identify agreements as candidates for opt-in.  We would like to review the
results of those meetings with the negotiating team on April 2 and present
the opt-in candidates.  Please indicate your availability for a luncheon
meeting.  I would expect the meeting to take up to three hours.  After that
meeting, we hope to have identified the contracts that we will use to
negotiate interconnection agreements with the ILECs for purposes of
opting-in.

With the assistance of Eric Benson, GA, we are putting together a database
that will identify the pros/cons of the agreements that we are reviewing.
It will be available to the team on the EBS Government Affairs website.
This will be a tool for internal review as well as charting the progress of
our negotiations on issues with the ILECs.

Addition to the GA Interconnection Negotiation Team

In addition to Lara and me, John Neslage will be joining the EBS Government
Affairs negotiating team.  John has been part of the Risk Analytics group,
determining risk exposure to EES/ENA/EBS for entering into particular
deals.  John is an attorney with experience with Enron International.  His
background and expertise will be a valuable addition to our team.

State Approval of Opt-In Agreements

A question was raised about whether or not we needed to have explicit state
commission approval of an opt-in agreement that has been executed by the
CLEC and the ILEC.  Most states do have a process for accepting such
contracts, however, it does not always require an act of the state
commission to become a valid contract.  Some states have a protest period,
after which time, if no one raises an objection, the agreement is passively
approved.  Oregon, for example, has a 16-day protest period.  If no one
protests the agreement within 16 days, the agreement is approved.  If
someone does protest, the state has upto 90 days to issue a decision.  As
part of the negotiation with the ILEC, we can request that we begin
operation immediately.  This is a matter of practice versus process.  While
we technically do need to go through the normal process for approval before
the agreement is valid, we can, on an unofficial basis, begin to operate as
though the agreement were approved.  This is done because there is a low
likelihood that a protest will be filed against the agreement.  We would
want to maintain a low profile about such mutual agreements as certain
state commissions may take exception to such practices.  The only other
caution would be that if any disputes were to arise prior to official state
commission approval, we would not have recourse to complain to the state
commission about the ILEC's behavior.  While the states have up to 90 days
to approve an agreement, unless they have provisions such as OR, we have
been advised that most approvals will occur within 30 days.