Telecommunications

The good news for local library patrons is that at last the county's largest library system--the 27-branch, 2-million-volume Orange County Public Library--has joined the personal computer age. The county-run library system, following virtually every other library system in the region, has opened its catalog to the spiraling numbers of people with home and office computers.

Students at Stephen S. Wise Temple Elementary School in West Los Angeles played host Thursday to about 100 students from Washington Carver Elementary School in Compton, who were learning how to use the temple school's new telecommunications program. The Galaxy system, as the program is called, is an interactive satellite educational curriculum for elementary school students that relies on direct satellite television, fax machines and other equipment.

A 15-minute phone call was all it took for 19-year-old Shanell Alexander to file her very first tax return. "It was easy," she says. "Everything they tell you in the book is exactly how it works" over the phone. Alexander, an accounting major at Cal State Northridge, is among the approximately 800,000 taxpayers who have filed their federal tax returns by phone so far this year.

Developers of the ambitious Playa Vista project are wagering that they will attract residents and businesses to the proposed mini-city near Marina del Rey by offering a trip back to the future--to a place where small town charms and high-tech communications will converge.

AT&T Corp. Time Warner Inc. Tele-Communications Inc. You. Sure, the telecommunications industry is dominated by multibillion-dollar companies whose programs, wires and services boast millions of customers. But there is still plenty of room for upstart entrepreneurs to break into the business, experts say. "People are going to get enormously rich exploiting this market," said Edward F. Tuck, a West Covina-based venture capitalist who has helped launch more than half a dozen telecom start-ups.

Weekdays, 16-year-old Chris Parnell comes home from school, tosses his keys on the table, goes upstairs to his room and stays there until he's called for dinner. After refueling, he returns to his room and often doesn't emerge again until the next morning. "We encourage him to go out," said his mother, Claudette, "but he's so happy in his room. There's so much to do." Totally.

In one of the largest layoffs in the history of American industry, AT&T Corp. said Tuesday that it will cut about 40,000 jobs as it prepares to split itself into three companies and take on an array of new competitors in the fast-changing telecommunications business. AT&T, which in September announced the biggest voluntary corporate breakup in U.S. history, said it would take a pretax charge of $6 billion to cover the costs of the downsizing.

In one of the largest layoffs in the history of American industry, AT&T Corp. said Tuesday it would cut about 40,000 jobs as it prepares to split itself into three companies and take on an array of new competitors in the fast-changing telecommunications business. AT&T, which in September announced the biggest voluntary corporate breakup in U.S. history, said it would take a pretax charge of $6 billion to cover the costs of the downsizing.