Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 19, 1993 TAG: 9311200278
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
As the measure is drafted, it would lift - with several restrictions - prohibitions that have been in place since 1984, when U.S. District Judge Harold H. Greene set the terms of the breakup of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.
Greene barred the regional telephone companies from three businesses: information services, phone equipment manufacturing and long-distance operations.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks, D-Texas, and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., would like to introduce the legislation before Thanksgiving recess next week, sources said.
The legislation may be delayed, however, because some details still are being negotiated.
Aides to Brooks and Dingell declined to comment.
The regional telephone companies have fought fiercely to get into the activities that Greene ruled were off-limits. They have been strongly opposed by newspapers, long-distance phone companies and consumer groups. Brooks and Dingell also have waged turf and philosophical battles over the issues during the past two years.
But one congressional source said members of Congress and some industry officials have felt more urgency to act in recent months in the face of court cases that punched holes in some of the barriers, and mergers and technological advances that have blurred the lines among telecommunications businesses.
The legislation could face a rough road to passage, sources said.
The measure in current form would require the Baby Bells to set up separate affiliates to get into manufacturing and information services. They would have to promise not to give these affiliates preferential treatment over other competitors.
To offer long-distance services, a Baby Bell would have to wait two years if it planned to lease lines and four years if it wanted to build its own system, sources said.
The Markey bill would lift state and federal restrictions barring cable television and telephone companies from each other's business, sources said.
Both the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department would have to approve a phone company's move into manufacturing or long-distance services. A split decision could be resolved by a federal circuit court.
In return for being allowed into new activities, the regional phone companies would be forced to open up their local phone business to competition under a bill that is scheduled to be introduced next week by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee, in conjunction with the Brooks-Dingell proposal.
The Markey bill would lift state and federal restrictions barring cable television and telephone companies from each other's business, sources said.
The bill also would speed competition in the local telephone market by forcing the Baby Bells to make it easier for competitors to hook into their networks.
- The Washington Post|
by CNB