<p>The days of the local phone company being only concerned about your landline are over.</p><p>Competition and evolving technology mean local phone providers are shifting more of their focus to nontraditional services like wireless, Internet and video, relegating the landline phone to a smaller role in the growth of the telecommunications industry.</p><p>More than half of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc.'s business today comes from offerings other than local phone service, including wireless and Internet access.</p><p>San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc.'s non-local phone service offerings account for 60 percent of its business, and Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. expects up to 40 percent of its future revenue to come from its share of Cingular Wireless LLC, once its acquisition of AT&T Wireless Services Inc. goes through.</p><p>"We are in the final 10 years of a 30-year transition," said telecom analyst Jeff Kagan. "The traditional phone line is going to be replaced by fiber to the home and the office."</p><p>The shift comes as there has been an increase in competition to provide local phone service, and a change in the way that service is offered as cable companies are now starting to offer phone service over their lines.</p><p>In the short term, observers don't expect the infrastructure used for traditional landlines to become obsolete, because the same copper wires deliver both voice and DSL Internet services. But, they say, in years to come there will be less of a need for that technology.</p><p>"The fundamental shift in communications today is from the traditional voice product to wireless and to broadband," said BellSouth chief executive Duane Ackerman.</p><p>When BellSouth reported its second-quarter earnings last month, it noted that its total number of access lines declined by 832,000 over the past year. Other traditional local phone providers also have seen access line losses.</p><p>The decline has made it even more important for local phone providers to broaden their service offerings.</p><p>BellSouth this week launched a bundled option that includes satellite television service. The partnership with DirecTV calls for BellSouth and DirecTV to discount their products when sold as part of a bundle of services. BellSouth will sell the package, and schedule installation of DirecTV for their customers, who will be able to pay for all of the services with one monthly bill.</p><p>Ackerman said he thinks it will be a while before local phone service is only a small part of his company's business. But, he noted. "I would hasten to say that a good part of the growth, if not all of the growth, is going to come on these new thrusts."</p><p>At Verizon, spokesman Jim Smith said that trend is expected to continue. Industry experts say there will be more reliance on using high-speed connections, known as broadband, either through copper or fiber, to transmit different types of communication like voice, data and video.</p><p>"We'll live in a hybrid world for a considerable number of years," Smith said. "However, the substance of what you will be able to do with a broadband connection is beyond anyone's vision right now."</p><p>Verizon expects to pass 3 million homes with fiberoptics in the next two years, Smith said.</p><p>SBC has shifted its focus toward data, long-distance and wireless.</p><p>"The local phone business for us is not a growth area," SBC spokesman Larry Solomon said. In the future, he said, that "will just be one of the services that we provide."</p><p>The technology shift also affects jobs. With the access line losses and other factors, BellSouth has reduced its workforce from roughly 100,000 to 64,000 in the last four years. The current total excludes its holdings in Latin America, which it is selling. SBC has reduced its workforce from 182,000 to 168,000 in the last two years.</p><p>Verizon cut 14,000 jobs in the past year. More than 21,000 workers accepted a voluntary retirement package in the fourth quarter that cost nearly $3 billion; but the company added jobs, mostly in the wireless segment, offsetting those losses.</p><p>Verizon's Smith said emerging technologies could continue to allow the telecommunications industry to cut costs. Verizon has said it hopes to cut $1 billion a year from its expenses in coming years.</p><p>Asked if Verizon, which has 200,000 employees, will need all of those jobs in the future, Smith said, "Logic says no, but we'll have to see how it goes."</p><p>"We're not talking a total displacement here," he said. "In the process, there will be some human factor adjustments."</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x2863434)</p><p>HASH(0x28634b8)</p><p>HASH(0x2863578)</p>
