House Bill Aims to End Telecom Logjam : Congress: It would let Bells offer long-distance service if competitive conditions are met.

Hoping to break a 10-year political logjam over telecommunications reform, House Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a measure that would allow the regional Bell telephone companies to offer long-distance phone service if they face some competition in their local markets.

The measure, sponsored by Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.) and Rep. Jack M. Fields (R-Tex.), chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee--would require the seven Baby Bells to demonstrate to federal regulators that they have satisfied a detailed checklist of preconditions indicating that they have opened their markets to local phone competition.

The House bill is generally viewed as less restrictive than a Senate measure, which requires a stiffer entry test. But it is more restrictive than a competing House bill introduced by Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), which would let the Baby Bells enter the long-distance market within six months of the bill’s passage unless there was a “dangerous probability” that the Bells could leverage their market power to create a new monopoly.

Many Bell telephone companies already face nascent local competition for business customers from small providers, such as MFS Communications Corp. and Teleport Communications. But these firms and many long-distance carriers say much more needs to be done to level the playing field in the local market: Would-be competitors to the Bells face immense obstacles in trying to interconnect with the local phone company and in ensuring that phone users can keep their telephone numbers if they change carriers.

In addition to promoting long-distance competition, the Bliley-Fields bill would abolish current federal laws that bar the Bells from competing against the cable industry, manufacturing telephone equipment and marketing electronic security services.

For nearly a decade, Congress has attempted, without success, to overhaul the nation’s 61-year-old communications laws. Last year, a House telecom reform measure passed overwhelmingly and was headed for enactment, but it ran aground when a companion Senate measure failed amid bickering between the Baby Bells and long-distance carriers.

The the bill introduced Wednesday may face an even tougher road, observers say.

And Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Fields’ predecessor as chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee and now its ranking Democrat, opposes provisions in the new bill that he fears will undo a major cable TV consumer protection law passed by Congress in 1992.