April 4, 2001 – Long-distance and 1-800 callers in the territory haven’t had much luck calling off-island since Friday, but Innovative Telephone officials say the problem isn’t theirs.
Sam Ebbesen, Innovative’s president and chief executive officer, said Tuesday that the problem "lies with a long-distance carrier and connections in Puerto Rico that are not accepting calls placed from the Virgin Islands."
Ebbesen said that when a customer makes an "800" telephone call, the connection is established by his company, which then sends the call via a long-distance carrier to the Puerto Rico Telephone Co.
"The final connection, however, is not achieved, through no fault of Innovative Telephone or its systems," he said.
Since Friday afternoon, Innovative Telephone, as the local exchange carrier, has been attempting to reroute as many calls as possible to ease the problem, Ebbesen said. He didn’t say when the problem would be fixed.
Meanwhile, fallout from a lawsuit between AT&T of the Virgin Islands and Innovative Telephone, formerly the V.I. Telephone Corp., continued Tuesday. Ebbesen denied responsibility regarding billing errors in AT&T’s latest telephone bills to its local customers. Ebbesen was responding to comments made Tuesday morning on a local radio show that said the errors may have been linked to Innovative Telephone.
"Innovative Telephone takes great exception to statements being made concerning its involvement in erroneous billing of AT&T’s April bills," Ebbesen said.
According to Ebbesen, Innovative Telephone discontinued billing long-distance charges for AT&T customers last January when AT&T severed its billing and collections agreement. Virgin Islands customers were billed by Innovative for calls from AT&T through Jan. 7, 2001, Ebbesen said. Innovative mailed the bills for those calls Jan. 15 and Feb. 1. AT&T has been billing its customers directly for calls made since Jan. 7, he said.
Ebbesen said AT&T officials attributed the billing errors to their company and not to Innovative.
In late March, AT&T filed a motion for summary judgment in its action against Vitelco for failure to turn over millions of dollars it collected on behalf of AT&T for long-distance charges. The dispute apparently led to AT&T's decision to begin billing its customers directly for long-distance calls rather than having them carried on Vitelco's, now Innovative, bill along with Vitelco's charges for local service.
Adjusting for a $1 million payment and for accruing interest, AT&T is seeking $4.7 million from Vitelco in three installments of $1.6 million, $1.5 million and $1.5 million.
