Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 28, 1993 TAG: 9310280058
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The merger of Bell Atlantic, a regional telephone company, and Tel-Communications Inc., the nation's largest cable company, "will form a colossus which will have a telephone or cable wire connecting approximately 40 percent of the homes in America," said Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio.
"If the deal were permitted to go forward without very strong restrictions, it would be a debacle for the American people," said Metzenbaum, chairman of the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.
The Justice Department must review the merger before it can be completed.
Claims that the deal will advance the creation of the so-called "information highway" will be scrutinized, along with any possible way it could hurt competition, said Anne Bingaman, assistant attorney general for antitrust.
Bell Atlantic Chairman Raymond Smith tried to assure Metzenbaum that the merger would increase competition, not stifle it.
The merged company will spend more than $15 billion during the next five years to create a system that is both a phone and cable TV company, offering interactive TV programming over a super-electronic cable, Smith said.
It will compete with other cable companies in the Bell Atlantic's seven-state region and other phone companies in the hundreds of communities where TCI operates cable systems.
The new company will divest itself of the TCI cable operations within the Bell Atlantic phone region, Smith said.
Metzenbaum said he was concerned that Bell Atlantic was backing off a statement made before the TCI deal that all cable rates should be reduced by 28 percent.
"I'm not retracting it," said Smith, who will head the merged company and its potentially 22 million cable TV subscribers. But he said the position would have to be reviewed in light of Bell Atlantic's new responsibilities to cable TV shareholders.
by CNB