THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 3, 1996 TAG: 9602030326
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
The sweeping telecommunications bill that passed Congress this week will accelerate Virginia's recently started march toward competition in local telephone services and quickly mean more choices of long-distance providers, one industry representative said Friday.
But local industry executives didn't expect any immediate change in the prices of phone, cable TV and other communications services.
Reviews were mixed on the long-term aspects of the bill. Industry leaders generally were pleased by the measure. But the leader of a union that represents phone employees said a market free-for-all created by the bill could lead to slipshod service and downward pressure on wages and benefits for workers in the industry.
``Customers want competition, and I think regulators have come to realize that competition is good,'' said Shannon Fioravanti, a spokeswoman for Bell Atlantic Corp., Hampton Roads' largest local phone-service provider.
Fioravanti said Bell Atlantic will seize opportunities created by the bill to enter new businesses.
Within a few weeks, Bell Atlantic will announce five states outside its current mid-Atlantic territory in which it will offer long-distance services, Fioravanti said. And within 15 months, Bell Atlantic wants to offer long-distance services to its current customers as well.
To do so, the company will first have to satisfy regulators that it has taken the necessary steps to let competitors challenge it in its own stronghold: the local-exchange telephone business.
In Virginia, the State Corporation Commission has adopted broad guidelines for introducing competition in the local phone loop. Bell Atlantic is ``anxious'' to quickly negotiate the final terms under which would-be competitors like cable TV operators and long-distance carriers could enter its local markets, Fioravanti said.
Franklin R. Bowers, general manager of Cox Communications Inc.'s Hampton Roads cable TV system, said he was pleased by the bill's passage and said he hopes it will lead to a lifting of government rules that he said have stifled innovation in his industry. Cox has been preparing for a major launch into the telephone and computer-data businesses.
But Bowers said consumers shouldn't expect too much right away. He said lawmakers have gone overboard in their rhetoric about exotic new services ranging from home shopping and banking to movies on demand.
While the bill would lift all rate caps on cable services within three years, Bowers said he doesn't expect prices to rise rapidly. There will be too much competition from satellite services and phone companies, he said.
Some key issues for broadcasters - like whether TV stations will have to pay for new digital TV channels - were put aside to get the bill through. But Ed Munson, president and general manager of WAVY-TV, the local NBC affiliate, said the bill does open the possibility of a single broadcaster owning two TV stations in a market.
KEYWORDS: TELEPHONE TELECOMMUNICATIONS BILL by CNB