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

DATE: TUESDAY, November 22, 1994                   TAG: 9411220117
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS|
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Short

RULING: PHONE COMPANIES MAY JOIN CABLE TV INDUSTRY

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court agreed with U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who last year declared the federal government's ban on sales an unconstitutional violation of free-speech rights.

Congress enacted the ban in 1984 to protect cable television companies from competition from telephone monopolies.

The U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Cable Television Association argued that telephone companies still could sell television programming to other cable systems or TV stations.

``While this may in general be true, the fact remains that the telephone companies cannot guarantee that video programming they wish to transmit to their local audience via cable television, a protected form of speech, will reach their desired audience,'' Judge Donald S. Russell of South Carolina wrote for the appeals court.

The only practical way of guaranteeing phone companies the ability to sell programming to their customers is to let them use their own equipment, the court said. Otherwise, ``this ability turns on the whim of local broadcasters and cable operators.''

The ban was challenged by the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Virginia, now known as Bell Atlantic-Virginia. The company wanted to offer television programming to its 60,000 customers in Alexandria.