PHONE COMPANY TO BUY TV SYSTEMS BABY BELL TO BECOME CABLE OPERATOR

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 10, 1993                   TAG: 9302100087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: C5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
PHONE COMPANY TO BUY TV SYSTEMS BABY BELL TO BECOME CABLE OPERATOR
In a transaction that further blurs the line between the telephone and cable TV industries, phone giant Southwestern Bell Corp. said Tuesday that it will buy the cable TV franchises serving 225,000 households in Montgomery County, Md., and Arlington County for $650 million.
Southwestern's purchase of the systems from Hauser Communications Inc. would be the first time a so-called Baby Bell phone company has owned a cable franchise.
The purchase could alter the debate surrounding federal telecommunications policy.
St. Louis-based Southwestern Bell, which had $10 billion in revenue last year, already does business in the Washington, D.C., area through its ownership of the cellular phone franchise Cellular One and publication of a local phone book, the One Book.
Cable TV Montgomery serves 172,000 households and Arlington Cable has 53,000 subscribers, making the combined systems the 12th largest in the nation. The sale should be completed by midsummer, Southwestern Bell said.
Telephone companies have campaigned for a decade for permission to enter the cable business within their own service areas, contending that cable companies are "unregulated monopolies" that make excessive profits.
Southwestern Bell and the six other regional phone companies still are barred from owning cable systems in their own back yards, but Southwestern Bell now will become a member of the industry it has criticized. Southwestern Bell's proposed purchase could allow it to be both a cable company and a phone company simultaneously.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB