Legislation
TelecomAM: Rockefeller Bill Would Require More Disclosure from Companies
TelecomAM: McCain Introduces Bill to Repeal 3 Percent Tax on Phone Use
NYT: House Panel Backs Copyright Bill
Long Distance
TelecomAM: SBC Asks Calif. PUC for Long Distance Blessing,
CLECs Urge Immediate Denial
Television
NYT: V-Chip and Ratings Are Close to Giving Parents New Power
Jobs
WSJ: Costa Rica's Sales Pitch Lures High-Tech Giants Like
Intel and Microsoft
Online Services/Internet
WP: Reaching Out to Teach Someone
NYT: Art Site Takes Plunge Into Not-For-Profitability
Mergers
WP: Chancellor Drops Bids For Radio Stations
** Legislation **
Title: Rockefeller Bill Would Require More Disclosure from Companies
Source: Telecom AM
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Legislation/Universal Service
Description: Sen John Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced legislation that
would make long distance carriers disclose Federal Communications Commission
actions that have lowered rates. Some long distance carriers have included
new line items on bills noting universal service charges. The Consumer
Protection Act (S-1897) directs the FCC and the Federal trade Commission to
investigate telecom billing practices and "make sure fees are described
accurately." Sen Rockefeller said, "You can't selectively disclose only
those pieces of information that are in your interest." [See press release
at http://www.senate.gov/~rockefeller/html/press/releases/1998/pr040198.html]
Title: McCain Introduces Bill to Repeal 3 Percent Tax on Phone Use
Source: Telecom AM
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Legislation/Telephone Regulation
Description: Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) has
introduced legislation that would eliminate the 3% excise tax "that all
Americans pay every time they use a phone." The tax was created to fund the
Spanish-American War [the newspaper industry did the work to start it, so
the phone industry had to do its part by paying for it] and has been imposed
"intermittently" ever since. The tax appears on local and long distance
bills [with the message "Remember the Maine!"]. Sen McCain said the tax "is
flatly inconsistent" with the goal of universal service as there are
proportionally higher costs on low-income and rural Americans.
Title: House Panel Backs Copyright Bill
Source: New York Times (CyberTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/cyber/articles/02copyright.html
Author: Jeri Clausing
Issue: Intellectual Property
Description: The House Judiciary Committee endorsed a copyright bill
Wednesday that includes a compromise between online service providers and
content providers that "limits Internet service providers' liability for
unwittingly hosting or transmitting illegal copies of copyrighted material.
The provision is part of a broader bill intended to bring an international
treaty on intellectual property protections into the digital age." Critics
are concerned that the bill might further increase the dominance of
companies like Microsoft by criminalizing the technology used to reproduce
copyrighted material that smaller competitors often utilize to make sure
that different brands of software and computer products are compatible.
"They are making it a crime, literally, to find out what the interfaces are
so I can make interoperable products," said John Scheibel, vice president
and general counsel of the Computer & Communications Industry Assoc. "There
is a lot of concern that this bill will have the unwanted consequence of
cooling the development of technology," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). But
she said she hopes that before the bill passes the full House, that members
"can find the language that won't do more than we intend to do."
** Long Distance **
Title: SBC Asks Calif. PUC for Long Distance Blessing,
CLECs Urge Immediate Denial
Source: Telecom AM
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Competition/Long Distance
Description: SBC's Pacific Bell unit has filed an application with the
California Public Utilities Commission to provide long distance service in
the nation's biggest service market. PacBell said it should be allowed to
enter the $9 billion California long distance market because 1) it has met
the all 14 points of the Telecom Act's open market checklist, 2) the public
would receive lower prices and better service, and 3) the move would create
82,000 jobs and add $10.2 billion to the state's economy over the next
decade. Competitors and consumer groups are calling for an immediate denial.
They blame the Baby Bell for competitors' inability to gain significant
market share of the $11 billion local telco market in the state.
** Television **
Title: V-Chip and Ratings Are Close to Giving Parents New Power
Source: New York Times (E6)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/circuits/downtime/02censor.html
Author: Laurie J. Flynn
Issue: V-Chip
Description: Television sets equipped with the V-chip, a set of internal
controls that will read TV show ratings transmitted by television networks,
will allow parents to make their TV sets go blank when a show comes on that
they think contains too much profanity, sex or violence. If consumers do not
want to purchase a new set, they can buy a set-top box, that looks similar
to a cable transmitter, that will retro-fit an existing television set with
V-chip capabilities. "It will be particularly useful for working parents who
can't always be present to monitor the TV watching of their children," said
William E. Kennard, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, this
past March when he announced that technical standards for the V-chip had
been adopted. The V-chip product is not yet available, but with technical
standards in place, television manufacturers are furiously working towards
the FCC mandate to have the V-chip installed in half of all sets larger than
13 inches by July 1999 and in all sets by January 2000.
** Jobs **
Title: Costa Rica's Sales Pitch Lures High-Tech Giants Like Intel and
Microsoft
Source: Wall Street Journal (A18)
http://wsj.com/
Author: Thomas T. Vogel
Issue: International/Jobs
Description: Technology companies like Intel, Microsoft, and Motorola have
plunked down hundreds of millions of dollars in new investments in Costa
Rica -- with Intel's $500 million chip complex being the single biggest
foreign investment in the country's history. From its new factory, Intel
plans to export $1 billion in chips in its first year, scheduled to start
this summer. The government's business sales pitch emphasizes that English
courses are mandatory for all Costa Rican students. It's setting up a
nationwide network of computer labs in high schools and universities. A few
months after Mr. Gates met President Jose Maria Figueres at a conference in
March '97,
Microsoft signed a 5-year deal with Costa Rica. The project, says Michael
Hard, a Latin America director for Microsoft, will help Costa Rica set up a
national "digital nervous system" for gov't. ministries, jump-start a
software industry and wire the nation's health and school systems.
** Online Services/Internet **
Title: Reaching Out to Teach Someone
Source: Washington Post (C1)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-04/02/139l-040298-idx.html
Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Issue: Online Services
Description: As AOL transforms itself from a techie outpost to a mass medium
with 12 million subscribers, it has begun to face a challenge radio stations
and TV broadcasters rarely did: teaching people how to use their service and
the necessary hardware. Technical questions now make up more than half the
calls to AOL's support center. Only last year, the centers were besieged
with calls from subscribers angry about a busy-signal crisis. Today the
company has a customer-service staff that grows as membership grows -- 150
more people are being hired -- but there are still complaints about lengthy
waits and surly responses to questions. To address these and other issues,
AOL execs have started a broad internal campaign to improve the "telephone
talk." Fred E. Lee Jr., general manager of the tech-support division, said,
"We're teaching our employees to talk to subscribers in very basic
terms...we're telling our people to be patient, to understand who you're
dealing with."
Title: On-Line Auction Services Put Haggling Back Into Sales
Source: New York Times (D1,D6)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/biztech/articles/02bazaar.html
Author: Saul Hansell
Issue: Internet Use
Description: An Internet service scheduled to be introduced Monday, will
give consumers the opportunity to haggle over the price of airline tickets.
Five of the eight top domestic airlines and several big foreign carriers
have agreed to respond electronically to consumer bids for round-trip
airline tickets made over the Internet. The tickets will have restrictions
attached to them to help weed out business travelers. But industry
consultants say that leisure travelers should be able to take advantage of
the service, sometimes even avoiding advance purchase restrictions.
Executives at Priceline, the company that established the service, say they
plan to extend the concept to the purchase of cars, interest on home
mortgages, and charges for international phone calls over the next year. On
Priceline's Web site, users enter the amount they want to pay for a ticket
to a specified destination on a given date. The person agrees to accept a
ticket on any major airline, any time of the day, with one possible stop
over. The tickets do not offer frequent flier miles and are non-refundable.
Title: Art Site Takes Plunge Into Not-For-Profitability
Source: New York Times (CyberTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/cyber/artsatlarge/02artsatlarg...
Author: Matthew Mirapaul
Issue: Arts
Description: Rhizome (pronounced "RYE-zome"), an "Internet locus for
freewheeling discussions about new-media art," announced yesterday that it
will be transforming into a not-for-profit entity. Rhizome's founder, Mark
Tribe, said the change "allows us to focus on being what we originally
intended to be, which is a resource for the new-media art community and not
a marketing tool for a commercial enterprise." But Tribe also acknowledges
that his decision was pushed forward by the closing of two other privately
funded online art sites -- the online gallery ada'web and the multimedia
magazine Word. Benjamin Weil, the co-founder of add'web, said, "Basically,
what they [Rhizome] are doing is acknowledging publicly that this kind of
activity is not a profitable one." This is especially true for the visual
arts, where the online market has yet to emerge. This reality has
discouraged galleries from investing in the Internet in the same way that
the publishing and music industry have, "creating online merchandizing sites
that simultaneously serve to showcase creativity." Donald Druker, critic,
historian and staff officer for a Commerce Department program that awards
information-infrastructure assistance grants to non-profit groups, asserted
that: "The technology has not yet made it easy to shop for graphic or fine
art online. At best, you get an approximation of the work. And who is going
to put a charge of several hundred dollars or more on his or her credit card
on the basis of a JPEG image?" Faced with this environment of "limited
revenue," art-related sites continue to struggle to support themselves.
Rhizome's site can be accessed at http://www.rhizome.org/. Also check out
Open Studio: The Arts Online, a Benton Foundation project that is working to
help artists and art groups become information providers via the Internet at
http://www.openstudio.org/.
** Mergers **
Title: Chancellor Drops Bids For Radio Stations
Source: Washington Post (C12)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Michael J. Sniffen
Issue: Merger/Radio
Description: A radio merger that the Justice Dept. challenged in court was
abandoned, and the gov't. forced the sell-off of 18 radio stations as a
condition of approving two other billion-dollar mergers in the rapidly
consolidating industry. Counting that development, 11 mergers have been
restructured or dropped in the face of gov't. objections since the 1996
Telecommunications Act
relaxed the limits on ownership of radio stations. Four months after the
department's antitrust division brought its first court suit to block a
radio merger since passage of the Act, Chancellor Media Corp. decided it did not
want to fight a court battle. Instead, Chancellor abandoned its $54 million
bid to acquire 4 radio stations owned by SFX Broadcasting Inc. The gov't.
alleged that the merger would have illegally reduced competition by giving
Chancellor control of more than 65% of local radio advertising market.
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