THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 1, 1995 TAG: 9502010430
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Two General Assembly panels cleared legislation Tuesday to end state-mandated monopolies on local phone services in Virginia.
A Senate subcommittee and House committee that oversee telecommunications matters swiftly approved mirror versions of the bill. The bills are expected to be approved by the full General Assembly. Gov. George F. Allen then likely would sign a consolidated bill.
Cable operators may be the first companies to try to take advantage of the law. Faced with video-on-demand competition from phone companies, they want to counter by offering phone services through their cable systems.
The proposed changes would take effect Jan. 1, 1996.
The compromise legislation passed Tuesday ends a high-stakes battle that has been raging for months. During legislative hearings last week, a well-armed consortium of cable-TV operators, long-distance phone companies and consumer groups fired a barrage of attacks at the state's local phone companies. They said that local carriers like Bell Atlantic-Virginia were trying to push through a bill that would actually hinder competition rather than help it.
In the wake of the unusually rough-and-tumble hearings, Del. George H. Heilig Jr., a Norfolk Democrat who chairs the House Corporations, Insurance and Banking Committee, asked the two sides to try one last time to settle their differences.
Lawyers and industry executives spent Saturday and Sunday ``hollering at each other,'' but eventually did what Heilig requested, said James Roberts, a Richmond attorney for Tele-Future Virginia, thecable long-distance consumer consortium.
It was their compromise bill that won nods from legislators Tuesday.
``I am quite pleased with the result,'' Roberts said.
Bell Atlantic and its local-exchange counterparts backed off on the proposals that the Tele-Future consortium most adamantly opposed. And Tele-Future agreed to language in the bill that would give ``generic'' instructions to the State Corporation Commission on how to foster competition.
Previously, local phone companies demanded that the commission be provided with specific guidelines. Among other things, the commission would have been barred from allowing long-distance phone companies from offering local services until federal restrictions on local phone companies providing long-distance services were lifted. The commission also would have been required to regulate incumbent carriers in exactly the same way as it regulates upstarts.
The Tele-Future group said that such demands would tie the commission's hands and impede competition. They advocated a bill that would give the commission much more freedom in structuring how to let in new providers.
Irving Taylor, a Richmond-area manager for Bell Atlantic, said his company gave in and agreed to a bill with more general guidelines for the commission - calling simply for fairness - because it trusts the agency to adopt sound rules. He said Bell Atlantic will have an opportunity to make its positions known to the commission during hearings.
Contrary to Tele-Future's claim, Taylor said, Bell Atlantic doesn't want to prevent competition. ``We feel it will be an enhancement for both the consumer and for us,'' he said. by CNB