Verizon paid $1.52 million to U.S. Treasury Fri. for not fully me...

for possible payment. Payment cycle for Verizon clicked in when company failed to meet conditions for 3 months in row, starting in April, and Fri.’s payment was for first such time period -- April, May and June. Verizon official said it was almost impossible to have 100% compliance because there were so many metrics that are measured on company’s providing of service to competitors. Spokesman said payment actually indicated high level of service because it was much lower than maximum payment of $21 million. He said 3 problem areas triggered payment: (1) Percent of time Verizon provided special access unbundled network elements (UNEs) within given time. (2) Percent of repeat trouble reports on any given line in 30-day period. (3) Average days of delay associated with providing UNEs and resale. Meanwhile, SBC paid $3.8 million under conditions of its merger with Ameritech but issued statement saying that was half of what it had to pay in Jan. SBC said its service had been improving but metrics were so specific that “no company could be measured in such minute detail without turning up areas that fall short of perfection.” SBC said it had 360 performance measurements “that are disaggregated into over 20,000 submeasurements.” All of those measurements have to be provided for every CLEC it does business with in every state, SBC said.