ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK NOTE: ABOVE
SOURCE: Associated Press
BUT THE COURTS are already being asked to decide if parts of the new law are constitutional.
Getting through dinner without a call from a phone or cable company that wants your business could get tougher, now that the telecommunication overhaul is law.
There are plenty more calls ahead, along with mail offers and broadcast and print ads, as local phone, long-distance and cable companies - freed of all sorts of regulatory barriers - try to muscle into one another's business.
President Clinton said as he signed the legislation Thursday that it will ``bring the future to our doorstep'' by opening new forms of communication through telephones, TV sets and computers.
But the future may not glide in smoothly. Controversy erupted almost immediately after the president's signing:
The law's ban on sending ``indecent'' and sexually explicit material to minors over computer networks was challenged in court.
The American Civil Liberties Union and 19 other groups said the law violates privacy rights and strangles free speech by authorizing the government to prosecute people even for the private messages they send about AIDS, abortion, politics and science - any subject involving sex.
The Justice Department pledged not to initiate prosecutions for a week, and a federal judge declined to temporarily block the law, giving prosecutors until Wednesday to submit written legal arguments.
The Clinton administration itself has raised constitutional concerns about the anti-indecency provision. Vice President Al Gore, in an interview after the signing, said: ``We're obligated to administer the law. But we said from the start, this particular provision will stand or fall in court.''
Common Cause, a Washington-based advocacy organization, charged Thursday that 10 major phone companies - AT&T, MCI and Sprint, along with the seven regional Baby Bells - attempted to shape the law by making $1.5 million in political contributions at crucial points in the bill's progress through Congress.
The driving purpose for the biggest communication legislation since 1934 is competition. Few companies wasted time adapting to it.
Even though you won't be able to take phone calls on your TV set for years, the advertising blitz has begun.
``It is a nuisance at times,'' said David Rua, an insurance agent in Pittsburg, Kan. ``But that's free American enterprise. If you try to cut that down, that's saying they can't compete.''
Less than an hour after Clinton signed the bill, the largest local telephone company, GTE Corp., said it had a contract with WorldCom Inc., the fourth-largest long-distance company, to resell long-distance service under the GTE name.
A few minutes later, AT&T Corp. Chairman Robert Allen stood before reporters in Washington and said the largest long-distance company would offer local phone service by late summer.
The goal for all is to become a one-stop provider of whatever communication service a customer seeks. The industry buzzword is ``bundling,'' or offering discounts for taking more than one service.
For consumers, many of the new choices will take months to appear - perhaps several years in small towns and rural areas. But the big marketing push will be seen everywhere and, in some places, has already started.
Still, consumers may be slow in taking advantage of the choices available to them. After all, 12 years after the breakup of AT&T, the company still has nearly 60 percent of the long-distance business.
``From the consumer's perspective, I have a feeling they're going to sit tight for a bit, because it's going to be so confusing,'' said Mie-Yun Lee, editor of Business Consumer Guide, a Watertown, Mass.-based newsletter that follows telecommunication trends.
Cox News Service contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB