TECHNOLOGY & TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Six Baby Bells Form Alliance: In what may reflect a trend toward greater cooperation among the offspring of AT&T;, six regional Bell telephone companies--including Pacific Bell--announced an arrangement to jointly market certain communications services. Called Unibridge, the service is targeted at companies that acquire personal communications systems (PCS) licenses in the upcoming Federal Communications Commission auction. Those companies may want to offer cellular phone-type PCS services but may not want immediately to invest huge sums in the communications infrastructure required to do so. The service would offer information about a set of compatible products provided by all the phone companies, such as billing, transport and connection to the public switched network. The members--Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Nynex, Pacific Bell and US West--will cover 43 states.