Ringing in A New Age   

The regional Bell companies are moving information services off the drawing boards and into operation. Here is a sample of what's already underway:

• In mid-March, BellSouth and Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, began test-marketing an information service for cellular phone customers in Los Angeles. The three-month test provides updated 30-second business reports and stock quotes. Earlier this year, BellSouth also launched a round-the-clock shopping and information service, CallNow. More than 630 Atlanta area businesses are participating in the trial service, which runs until November 1992 and allows consumers to place orders, hear promotional messages and call for other information.

• NYNEX has announced a new electronic Yellow Pages with 1.7 million listings. Consumers with personal computers can use their telephones, at 61 cents a minute, to select from hundreds of categories.

• Pacific Telesis Group is launching three new services: customized reports including headlines, sports scores and closing stock prices delivered daily to subscribers to the company's home voice mail answering service called the Message Center; expanded directory assistance that allows operators to give information about businesses such as location and hours of operation; and a new service called Knowledge Network Gateway that will link schools in California to educational resources including Internet, the National Science Foundation network of information and university library databases.

• U S WEST has started a call-in traffic information service, "Traffic Watch," for its cellular customers in Denver, Minneapolis and Seattle. In addition, cellular customers in western Washington can access information about stocks, weather, sports scores and other topics through a joint effort with the Seattle Times InfoLine.

P.P.