Subject: [NEXTEL-1] C-U to hear testimony on IP at joint hearing

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 09:06:40 -0400

C-U to hear testimony on IP at joint hearing

By J. PHILIP 
© 2003 THE NEWS-GAZETTE
Published Online June 19, 2003

CHAMPAIGN - The cities of Champaign and Urbana will be conducting a rare joint
hearing to solicit testimony from the public on Illinois Power's reliability and
service to the community.  The hearing was prompted by the experience of Amdocs in
Champaign, which solicited the state and city help to pay for a second power feed
to the facility or risk losing the company.

"The Amdocs case illustrated the difficulties people were having. It triggered
other complaints and just how widespread the problems are," said Trisha Crowley,
the deputy city attorney in Champaign who is helping organize the hearing.

Bill Gray, public works director for the city of Urbana, said it is a shared
problem.

"Champaign's concerns are identical to ours," Gray said. "We've heard concerns
from businesses that electrical service is a factor on whether they can stay. It's
not only reliability, but service, too, and the problems businesses and
contractors have working with the utility, especially since deregulation."

The hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, in the council chambers of
the Champaign City Building, 102 N. Neil St.  Amdocs, an electronic billing and
service center located on Fox Drive in south Champaign, has had reliability
problems for about two years, prompting its primary customer, Nextel, to demand
assurances that reliable power be delivered or it would look elsewhere for another
provider.

Amdocs recruited legislators and city officials for help. The city in March
contributed $50,000 to help Amdocs Inc. get a $75,000 state grant to help pay for
a $180,000 upgrade to the company's electrical service. But not without
reservations.

"It's really tragic our community can't provide an employer of 500 people with a
simple commodity like electrical power," said council member Tom Bruno. "The blame
for that falls squarely on the utility. I wish we didn't have to spend this money.
I wish we had reliable electrical power. But we don't."

The hearing will also feature an expert to talk about the current regulatory
environment. Bob Stephens is a former Illinois Commerce Commission staffer now
with the utility consulting company Brubaker and Associates of St. Louis.
University of Illinois officials, Chamber of Commerce, possibly Danville
officials, as well as IP officials are expected to be on hand too, Crowley said.

Shirley Swarthout, a Decatur-based spokesman for the utility, confirmed that
someone from IP will be there.  "Illinois Power will definitely be at the meeting.
We appreciate hearing from our customers, and if there are concerns we want to
hear about them," Swarthout said.

The hearing will be broadcast on the city's public access channel 5.  Crowley said
one result of the hearing may be a complaint filed with the ICC, but the hearing
itself is intended to gather information.  "We're going into it in an exploratory
manner to see what the anecdotal local experience has been," Crowley said.

http://www.news-gazette.com/story.cfm?Number=13087

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 09:11:39 -0400

Timmy should not boast about a relationship with a company (AMDOCS) that can't
keep the lights on!
And people wonder why their bills is so S*** up.

<Snip>
Investor Alert 

 Nextel Communications and Nextel Partners Complete Full Scale Deployment
 of Amdocs Comprehensive Billing and Customer Care Platform 
 Date(s): 6/24/2003 6:02:00 AM 

[email-masked] wrote:
> to the facility or risk losing the company. Amdocs, an electronic billing and

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From: Jack Daniel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 10:01:56 -0700

I guess this is just another example of the way business gets done now
days. 

Maybe this is not about improving customer service but leverage to get
Amdocs to lower their fees.

I assume the people who got the Invester Alert will also get the
News-Gazette article as a routine 'truth in reporting' practice.

But I may be wrong........
Jack Daniel
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