THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090426
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
President Clinton signed a sweeping bill Thursday to overhaul the telecommunications industry, starting a new round of warfare between the giant media and communications companies even before the ink was dry.
Scores of industry executives, from Ted Turner to the chairman of AT&T, crowded into the signing ceremony along with politicians of both parties and the lobbyists, lawyers and regulators who will be the foot soldiers in the struggles ahead.
``Today, with the stroke of a pen, our laws will catch up with the future,'' Clinton said, signing a bill that knocks down regulatory barriers and opens up local telephone, long-distance service and cable television to new competition.
Top executives at local and long-distance telephone companies immediately vowed to start attacking each other's markets within the year.
That means consumers are certain to face a flood of promotions in the months ahead, even though people won't be able to take phone calls on their TV sets for years.
Many big companies, including local telephone provider Bell Atlantic Corp., didn't waste a minute before jumping into the fray.
The president of Bell Atlantic all but said publicly that his company is actively seeking some kind of alliance or merger with Nynex Corp. - a deal that would create a company that controls local phone service from Virginia through Maine.
In the same room, AT&T chairman and chief executive Robert E. Allen vowed that his company would try to offer local telephone service in every state and pledged to capture one-third of the business now controlled by the regional Bell companies.
Allen said his company would offer an unprecedented new range of local, long-distance and even television services to its customers in the near future.
In Hampton Roads, Bell Atlantic has said it hopes to offer long-distance service within 15 months. Bell Atlantic President James G. Cullen said Thursday that the company would begin offering long-distance service to its current customers within a year.
Cox Communications, which provides cable TV service in much of Hampton Roads, has been preparing for a major launch into the telephone and computer-data businesses.
The telecommunications measure, passed after years of struggle and lobbying between rival segments of the communications industry, is expected to unleash a wave of mergers and acquisitions but eventually knock down traditional monopolies in local telephone service and cable television.
Its most immediate impact, apart from a barrage of advertising, will probably be ferocious legal battles in the courtroom and at the Federal Communications Commission. In Philadelphia, a broad range of civil liberties groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union immediately sought a court injunction against provisions that impose heavy fines and prison terms on those who make available pornography or indecent sexual material over computer networks.
In Brooklyn, abortion-rights groups went to court to block a provision that some say would make it illegal to transmit information about abortions over computer networks.
But the Justice Department said the provision, which expanded the reach of a little-known law passed in 1873, was clearly unconstitutional and would never be enforced.
Clinton also put new pressure on television broadcasters to develop a system for rating violence on their shows. The new law requires television manufacturers to install a special V-chip in every new set to allow parents to block automatically any program, using a special code.
To be effective, however, broadcasters must develop a system for deciding which shows are violent and then transmit the signal. Commercial broadcasters are adamantly opposed to the whole idea, and some have threatened to challenge the law in court.
Thursday, Clinton announced that the White House would meet with representatives of the entertainment industry Feb. 29 to discuss ways of reducing gratuitous violence on television and to make a plea for a new rating system. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by The New York Times, The
Associated Press and Knight-Ridder News Service. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS color photo
President Clinton uses an electronic pen to sign the landmark
telecommunications bill.
Color graphic by JOHN CORBITT, The Virginian-Pilot
by CNB