August 23, 1999

Ms. Felicia Greer
Executive Secretary
Maryland Public Service Commission
15William Donald Schaefer Tower
6 St. Paul Street
Baltimore, MD 21202-6806

Re: File No. 19923209 Amendment

Ms. Greer,

This letter is concerning the disputed billing issue between Bell Atlantic and Network Konnection, Inc. This matter revolves around what we feel results to erroneous billing by Bell Atlantic on our account and the obvious attempt by Bell Atlantic to eliminate its competition through deception and instituting unscrupulous billing practices.

Before outlining the issues revolving around your billing practices, it is necessary to shed some light on the history of the treatment of Network Konnection, Inc. by Bell Atlantic from the point of Network Konnection, Inc. (NKI) producing its first widely circulated advertisement for unlimited 56Kbps Internet service for $4.99 per month in July 1997 in The Washington Post.

In Early August ,1997, NKI requested its second Primary Rate Interface Arrangements (PRI) pipe due to an influx of new Internet subscribers brought on by our new advertising campaign. Bell Atlantic informed us, that the installation of this additional pipe would take anywhere from 14 to 45 days. This second pipe was not installed until December 23, 1997, Approximately 140 days from the date of the original request. Several telephone calls were made to Bell Atlantic between the date of the initial order to the date of installation. We see this as a deliberate attempt to thwart our growth by creating busy signals, thus causing our customers to experience problems connecting to our network. During this period, Bell Atlantic, Erols and NKI were competing Internet Service Providers and both Bell Atlantic and Erols were in the middle of aggressive advertising 56Kbps campaigns of their own. However, neither Erols nor Bell Atlantic could compete against NKI's $4.99 per month unlimited Internet access. From a business perspective, it only makes sense that Bell Atlantic being the areas' Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) providing PRI's, that they could in essence monitor and to an extent, slow the growth of its completion by not providing requested equipment and or services on demand. (SEE EXIBIT B1)

Bell Atlantic used this tactic whenever it was convenient and it worked. It worked not only because Bell Atlantic has a monopoly on local PRI Arrangements service in the area, but it also worked because Bell Atlantic being the conglomerate that it is, has resources not available to small ISP such as NKI. The proof that these tactics worked in the case of NKI is evidenced in the lost of business we suffered due to not being able to support the traffic we were gaining because of the delay in the installation of the requested additional pipes in a timely manner. This was the first in a series of events that signaled the beginning of what we see as an undesirable working relationship.

On February 20, 1999 at approximately 2:30 p.m., Network Konnection, Inc. received a faxed letter from Vivian Woodson, Customer Support Coach from the Bell Atlantic LBS Tier II ISP Sales Department in Baltimore. Ms. Woodson was responding to our complaint filed with the State of Maryland Public Service Commission on December 31, 1998. This complaint was filed with the Public Service Commission because of the repeated failure on behalf of Bell Atlantic to respond to our numerous inquires surrounding our billing. As the first part of Ms. Woodson's letter correctly states, during our first year as a Bell Atlantic customer (September, 1996 through August, 1997), there were no disputes or questions regarding our service. As mentioned above, our problems began during the period after August 1997.

As mentioned previously, NKI requested its second PRI pipe in August 1997 and did not receive it until December 23, 1997. During the first quarter of 1998, after the installation of the second PRI, we began receiving calls of complaint from many of our customers stating that they were experiencing what they termed as "high disconnect rates." As a result of these complaints, we began researching this problem internally only to discover much later that the problem was not an internal NKI problem, but was due to the so called "winking caused by Bell Atlantic circuits." This again, caused NKI to experience a lost of business.

NKI received bills for the months of January, February and March 1998 and remitted payment in full for them all. We received the April bill that was for $5,693.67. We repeatedly called Bell Atlantic to question this bill and were repeatedly told that they would research the bill and that someone would get back to us. We were never given an answer as to why we were billed that amount. Instead of an answer as to why we were billed the $5,693.67, they sent us what was marked as a "Duplicate Bill" in the amount of $578.63. Again we called Bell Atlantic to ascertain what was going on and we were not successful in getting anyone at Bell Atlantic to respond to us. The next bill we received was the May bill for $17,274.95. We were again perplexed because we were under the impression that the billing error had been corrected when we received the duplicate bill for $578.63 for April, only to get the May bill reflecting a balance of $17,274.95. On May 29, 1999 NKI called Bell Atlantic to try to get someone to explain to us why we were being charged this amount and told them that we felt we were being supplied with the wrong service and that we wanted the current service to be discontinued. We feel that Bell Atlantic in a deliberate attempt was trying to create a situation where NKI would be put in a position of having to pay an exorbitant amount in a short period of time and would not be able to remit such an amount (See EXIBIT A1). NKI truly feels that Bell Atlantic would not have treated and does not treat its regular business customers in this manner, which is in violation of rules governing anti-competitive practices and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. (See EXIBIT A1)

After several attempts with no success to get some kind of an answer from Bell Atlantic, NKI filed a grievance with the Maryland Public Service Commission (MD PSC). It was not until this was done, that NKI received a response from Bell Atlantic. In between the time that we filed with the MD PSC and receiving a reply from Bell Atlantic, our attorney attempted to get some type of answers, but he too was ignored.

The crux of the problem revolving around the issue at hand is three fold. The first is, why did it take Bell Atlantic four (4) months to bill NKI for PRI’s that were installed two and four months prior. Secondly, why was Bell Atlantic not cooperative in explaining their billing; and thirdly, why did Bell Atlantic not discontinue the service that it was informed on May 29^th was the wrong service.

NKI feels that this entire scenario could have been avoided had Bell Atlantic responded when these questions were originally raised. NKI up until the time of the April bill had remitted payment for all of the bills that it had ever received from Bell Atlantic. NKI realizes and accepts the fact that Bell Atlantic plays a major role in it carrying out its business. The question then becomes why would a ISP business even attempt to jeopardize its business operations with another company that without the services of that company would mean suicide in terms of the smaller company establishing itself as a viable business operation. The

Answer to this question is simple, it would not.

In light of the events over the past several weeks, NKI is requesting that Bell Atlantic take some responsibility for the current state of affairs. NKI as evidenced on our regular business account and the remittance of payments made before April 1998 is responsible in remitting payments due and for which it is liable. We are requesting a complete and total audit of our account. We find that there are discrepancies in the accounting of events detailed in the letter written by Ms. Vivian Woodson, dated February 20, 1999. In addition, we request that the data service currently being provided Bell Atlantic to NKI to transmit discontinues data. This will leave NKI with only voice services being provided to NKI by Bell Atlantic.

Upon final resolution of this billing matter, NKI is prepared to remit payment via a reasonable monthly arrangement to Bell Atlantic.

Sincerely,

Anthony Bowlds

Vice President