Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 26, 1994 TAG: 9410260045
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA LENGTH: Short
That's what Tuesday's deal between Sprint Corp., a long-distance carrier, and three giant cable television companies is about - the ability to lure consumers by packaging every communications and entertainment service under the sun.
``In the not-too-distance future,'' Comcast Corp. President Brian L. Roberts said, ``a Comcast cable person can knock at your door and say, `We can offer you Sprint [local] telephone, Sprint wireless, Comcast video, Sprint long-distance - all the pieces of this telecommunications puzzle.''
It's a vision local phone companies such as Bell Atlantic have been selling for some time. And now it's one the cable industry is pursuing full throttle with the unveiling of a deal that will propel it into the wired and wireless phone business, using Sprint's well-known name to compete against the seven Baby Bells.
``We are, in effect, starting a national local telephone company,'' said John C. Malone, president of Tele-Communications Inc.
The deal links Sprint, the third-largest U.S. long-distance phone company, with TCI, Comcast and Cox Cable Communications, which have a combined reach of 17 million homes and whose wires pass some 30 million homes, or one-third of U.S. households.
The venture - owned 40 percent by Sprint, 30 percent by TCI and 15 percent by each of the other two partners - gives the cable companies an experienced partner to help enter the local phone business, which brings in $90 billion a year.
The partners gave no financial details of the multibillion-dollar deal.
by CNB