MEDIA : Bell Atlantic Offers Access for Developers of Software : Multimedia: Plan is one of several that have put the company in the info highway fast lane.

Bell Atlantic Corp., despite the collapse of its attempt to merge with Tele-Communications Inc., is still paving key portions of the information superhighway.

The company said Tuesday that it will open its network to software developers who want to invent and sell applications. Novell Inc. and Teloquent Communications Corp. are its first partners in the third-party software deal.

The plan is one of several that have put Bell Atlantic in the forefront of the evolving industry, analysts said.

“Presumably, this could accelerate innovations for use of the telephone networks,” said Jim Moore of GeoPartners Inc., consultant to telecommunications and computer industries.

The regional phone company had planned to hit the so-called information superhighway--a futuristic plan to make electronic information easily available via telephone or computer--with the proposed TCI merger.

But the $33-billion deal collapsed Feb. 23 after the two sides could not agree on a price for TCI, the largest U.S. cable company. The day before, federal regulators cut the rates that cable companies could charge their subscribers, which reduced TCI’s value.

“Even without the TCI merger, we have a number of arrows in our quiver,” Bell Atlantic Chairman Raymond Smith told investment managers a week later. He said, however, that new caution will prevent the company from spending where profits are not likely to follow.

Bell Atlantic can forge a leading industry presence without a substantial capital investment, he said.

The third-party development plan, in which software companies can use a Bell Atlantic lab to gain access to its Advanced Intelligence Network platform for writing software, is one way to do just that, the company said Tuesday.

“There could be software developers from all over the country joining us,” said John Prisco, vice president of marketing for large business services.

“Our basic strategies are exactly the same--to build full-service networks, to develop and deliver a robust package of value-added services over those networks and to expand beyond our regional territory,” Smith said last week.

Bell Atlantic has made other key moves. It took on more than a minor role in the building of a video-based and data-based roadway when it became the only regional phone company legally allowed to sell cable TV in its own region.

It also developed and is testing an interactive multimedia product called Stargazer. It has installed fiber-optic lines and advanced switches in most of its territory, the mid-Atlantic states from New Jersey to Virginia, including Washington, D.C.

“It’s very plain, when you look at the number of fiber miles and their aggressive upgrades, that Bell Atlantic is one of the most aggressive of the regionals,” said Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research Corp.

But Bell Atlantic is not the only Baby Bell laying the information superhighway’s infrastructure.

US West Inc. is named by most analysts as the other regional phone company leading the interactive multimedia and superhighway construction. US West owns 25% of the cable TV unit of Time Warner Inc.

Regulators in Bell Atlantic’s region have made life easier than it is for many other regional Bells, Rosenberg and other analysts said. These states, in particular New Jersey, have favored aggressive spending on network upgrades using ratepayers’ money.

Other regionals have laid the groundwork to become powerhouses in wireless communications, as has BellSouth Corp., or venture into long-distance telephone service, as has Ameritech Corp.

Pacific Telesis Group of San Francisco plans to offer very sophisticated multimedia services to its regional customers but has not reached into other areas.