Panel Clears Bill To Unleash Phone, Cable Companies Supporters, Critics Disagree Over Legislation’s Impact On Cost Of Phone, Cable Service
After significant concessions to Democrats, a Senate panel approved a bill Thursday that would free telecommunications companies to provide a much wider variety of services.
Consumer groups assailed the package, saying it would lead to higher cable and telephone rates and create giant companies that will control people’s access not only to telecommunications services, but to news and entertainment.
Supporters, including the nation’s seven regional Bell companies, say it will do just the opposite: Lower prices, boost consumer choices and create millions of jobs.
The Senate Commerce Committee approved, 17-2, a proposal by Chairman Larry Pressler, R-S.D., who is already consulting with Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas about when to bring the package to the floor.
“This will cause an explosion of devices and services for consumers at lower prices,” Pressler predicted in an interview. “I predict cable rates will go down … telephone rates will go down eventually.”
Before the hearing, Pressler and ranking committee Democrat Ernest Hollings of South Carolina reached a compromise on several hotly contested provisions in the bill: the terms by which local and long-distance telephone companies may get into each other’s businesses; cable rate deregulation; and broadcast deregulation.
Under the new agreement, Pressler said he believes floor fights can be avoided on the first two provisions. But he was not as sure about the third, which has the broadcasting industry enraged.
On the long-distance part of the bill, the compromise imposes slightly tougher conditions on local phone companies entering the long-distance business and takes away a virtually guaranteed right to enter the business within three years.
The compromise also makes it easier for potential competitors to enter local telephone markets by adding provisions ensuring that access to existing local telephone networks and services is available at cost-based rates. It also gives authority over selling such services to state and federal regulatory bodies.
Long-distance companies welcomed, but were not satisfied, by the changes. “There is a lot more to be done,” AT&T said in a statement.