Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 6, 1994 TAG: 9408090016
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Just maybe, says Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, who alluded to such notions at his recent telecommunications conference at Virginia Tech. Boucher, the de facto grand marshal of the region's parade onto the information superhighway, plans to amend pending legislation to permit utilities such as Apco to compete with telephone and cable TV companies to provide telecommunications services.
The more players, the more consumer choices and the lower the cost, is how Boucher sees it. He's "very optimistic" that Congress will approve his amendment.
Hold the phone, says Apco's parent company, American Electric Power, which doesn't exactly share the congressman's vision - on this or in other matters.
"We have no plans at this time to get into the telecommunications business," said Bruce A. Beam, the utility's vice president for governmental affairs. "But," he conceded this week, "we do have people looking at it." He declined to speculate on what shape "it" might eventually take.
Boucher suggested this week that the utility company is just being coy. "AEP has very clearly indicated that in the future it wants to use its excess capacity to get into communications services," he said.
The connection between customers and the information highway of the future would be through the same optical-fiber link that he predicts power companies will one day install to help conserve electricity. The system would let consumers program their big energy users - like electric heating - to take advantage of lower, off-peak rates. Apco already is testing this, using conventional telephone lines.
Customers could even choose to let the power company control clothes dryers, electric water heaters or kitchen appliances to take advantage of off-peak rates, he theorizes.
That same optical-fiber cable the power company would string to each customer's house has plenty of capacity to let the utility offer all kinds of other services, assuming it wants to: movies, home shopping, teletext, even telephone and cable television service. It's all possible, assuming a pathway clear of regulatory obstacles and the will to compete on the utility's part, said Boucher.
The Federal Communications Commission has "enthusiastically endorsed" the concept of utilities tooling down the information superhighway alongside the more traditional telecommunications providers, said Boucher, calling the competition "very healthy." Like it or not - ready or not - he'll submit an amendment to a utilities bill to pave the way for utilities to become full citizens of the information nation.
Beam said other Southeastern utilities "want to get into telecommunications so bad they can taste it." American Electric Power isn't tipping its own hand just yet.
AEP's new chief executive officer, Lynn Draper, recently commented during a management summit meeting about getting into ventures the company knows nothing about. But, AEP knows about fiber-optic networks, Beam allowed cryptically - more than once during a 20-minute conversation. An optical-fiber grid already connects the utility's various plants and facilities, so this is not foreign territory, Beam noted. "This is a business we already know a lot about," he said.
On the other hand, Beam emphasized that American Electric Power has never asked Boucher to go to legislative bat for the company. But, if it's a hit, Apco won't be lost in cyberspace.
In the future, if it were allowed, "we'd like to have that opportunity," he said.
So, how would you like your toast?
by CNB