WASHINGTON-Construction of the Clinton administration’s much ballyhooed information superhighway is likely to be delayed, following the death of telecommunications reform legislation in the 103rd Congress.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., pulled the plug on his information superhighway bill late last month, blaming some regional Bell telephone companies and Minority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., for the measure’s demise.
The legislation represented the most sweeping overhaul of telecommunications laws since the enactment of the Communications Act of 1934.
The impact on the wireless telecommunications industry is limited. First, regional Bell cellular firms will continue to be prohibited from offering long-distance wireless services, while AT&T Corp.-McCaw Cellular Communications Inc., Nextel Communications Inc. and others build nationwide wireless networks.
Second, last year’s regulatory parity provisions creating commercial mobile radio service will not be undone by information superhighway legislation.
Cellular operators, particularly, worried that the Hollings bill’s imposition of interconnection and equal access requirements on all common carriers would force wireless firms to let each subscriber choose their own long-distance telephone company. Burdensome regulations would chill competition in the wireless telecommunications industry, according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
Cellular resellers, on the other hand, wanted wireless interconnection mandated.
Third, the legislation’s downfall erases for now prospects for broadcasters to make flexible use of their spectrum.
Of Bell lobbying and Dole’s demand to accept a significantly deregulated version of the bill before a floor vote on the legislation, Hollings stated, “We will not be held hostage at the last minute to ultimatums and to the desires of certain parties to substantially rewrite a bill that passed the committee by an overwhelming and bipartisan vote.”
The Commerce Committee passed Hollings’ bill 18-2 in August, but that did not stop bitter fighting among various telecommunications industry sectors and lawmakers anxious to return home for mid-term election campaigning.
Dole, saying the bill would cause local telephone bills to go up, increase government regulation and stifle innovation, conceded, “the status quo is no longer acceptable,” and expressed confidence that a bipartisan bill could be passed early next year. By that time, Dole would like to be Senate majority leader.
Dole and the seven regional Bell companies, spun off from AT&T a decade ago, refused to take blame for the legislation’s collapse and pointed to opposition from state regulators, governors and mayors, labor groups and other lawmakers, like retiring Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, and Republican senators Bob Packwood of Oregon and John McCain of Arizona.
The Hollings bill, like companion legislation, resoundingly passed by the House in June, would have allowed telephone and cable television companies to compete with each other in the same market and enable the seven regional Bells to enter the manufacturing and long-distance telephone markets.
“We had an historic opportunity to pass legislation updating our communications laws,” said House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass. “That opportunity is now gone, and I have trouble seeing another opportunity come our way.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt said the nation “needs a legislative commitment to competition and I am confident that competition will eventually be the law of the land.”
In the meantime, Bells are expected to seek regulatory relief from the courts and states to enter new lines of business.
Several Baby Bells have petitioned U.S. District Judge Harold Greene to vacate the 1982 AT&T divestiture decree that continues to keep the seven regional Bells out of the manufacturing and long-distance telephone markets. As such, long-distance giants AT&T, MCI Communications Corp. and Sprint Corp. come out the big winners in 1994.