Universal Service
To Have and Have Not: Advanced Telecommunications Technologies
(FCC)
Schools, Libraries Cope With Cut in Funding of Internet Plan
(CyberTimes)
Campaign Finance Reform
Mines on the Road to Reform (NYT)
Television
Networks Cheered by Sales Of 1998-99 Commercial Time (NYT)
$5 Billion Windfall for Public Broadcasting? (B&C)
Tauzin Launches Public Broadcasting Remake (B&C)
Study Finds Cable Pay Inequity (B&C)
FCC
McCain Vows to Overhaul FCC (B&C)
Wireless
New Opportunities for Small Wireless Operators (NTIA)
Mergers
Senate Panel Ponders Long-Term Effect of Mergers (NYT)
Bill Would Limit Phone Mergers (NYT)
MCI, WorldCom Think EU Will Allow Merger (WP)
Odds Rise for Telecom Italia - AT&T Deal (WSJ)
Jobs
Debate Over Visas for Foreign Workers Focuses on Layoffs (CyberTimes)
** Universal Service **
Title: To Have and Have Not: Advanced Telecommunications Technologies
Source: FCC
http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Ness/spsn812.html
Author: Commissioner Susan Ness
Issue: Universal Service
Description: Commissioner Ness's Remarks "To Have and Have Not: Advanced
Telecommunications Technologies" before the Computer and Communications
Industry Association's 1998 Washington Caucus in Washington, DC.
Title: Schools, Libraries Cope With Cut in Funding of Internet Plan
Source: New York Times (CyberTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/06/cyber/education/17education.html
Author: Pamela Mendels
Issue: E-Rate
Description: Now that the Federal Communications Commission has decided to
reduce the e-rate program's budget by 42 percent, school technology
administrators across the country are having to figure out how to make do
with less federal funding for classroom Internet connections. These
administrators aren't the only ones in the dark, officials at the Schools
and Libraries Corp. (SLC), the group established to administer the e-rate
program, are now trying to figure out what the new budget will mean for
those schools and libraries that applied for the federal funding. "Over the
next couple of days and weeks we will be putting together very specific
details on what impact all this will have" on applicants and funding, said
Mickey Revenaugh, vice president for outreach and education at SLC.
** Campaign Finance Reform **
Title: Mines on the Road to Reform
Source: New York Times (A30)
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/editorial/17wed1.html
Author: NYT Editorial Staff
Issue: Campaign Finance Reform
Description: Campaign finance reform become the central issue in the House
starting today. " Newt Gingrich and other foes of change have lined the road
with mines and booby traps, but if reformers counterattack with discipline
and force they can quickly gain the upper hand." The reform bill offered by
Representatives Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Martin Meehan of
Massachusetts would ban unlimited "soft money" and impose "other sensible
fund-raising limits. The Shays-Meehan bill is near gaining a majority. "We
urge Republicans and Democrats who have spent the last two years championing
reform in principle to seize the moment. They need to submerge their
partisan instincts and reject [delaying] amendments no matter how tempting
it may be to go along with them. Once it becomes clear that there are enough
votes to thwart the obstructionists, it will be harder and harder to carry
out the amendment charade."
** Television **
Title: Networks Cheered by Sales Of 1998-99 Commercial Time
Source: New York Times (C1)
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/tv-networks-ad-column.html
Author: Stuart Elliott
Issue: Television Economics
Description: Top television network executives are pleased with advanced
sales of commercial time for the 1998-99 prime time season. The Big Four --
ABC, CBS, FOX, & NBC -- have sold an estimated $6.05-$6.1 billion in up
front sales for the next season -- $6.0-$6.05 billion was sold ahead of the
1997-98 season. Two start-up networks -- UPN and WP -- raised the total to
$6.4-$6.5 billion. In many industries, flat sales would be reason for
concern, But with so many viewers tuning into cable channels -- and reading
important email messages like this one -- the networks are seeing stability
as growth.
Title: $5 Billion Windfall for Public Broadcasting?
Source: Broadcasting&Cable (p30)
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/
Author: Paige Albiniak
Issue: Public Broadcasting
Description: The Gore commission, established to recommend public interest
obligations for digital broadcasters, has "come to the consensus" that
public broadcasting should be the beneficiary of a trust fund and should
have a fully funded second channel designated for educational programming. A
public broadcasting coalition, including the Association for Public
Television Stations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public
Broadcasting Service, proposed to the Gore commission last week that
Congress authorize the creation of a fund of at least $5 billion. The
funding could come from "analog spectrum auctions; compensation from
commercial broadcasters to fulfill their public interest obligations; fees
from commercial broadcasters' digital subscription services or transfer fees
from the sale of commercial licenses."
Title: Tauzin Launches Public Broadcasting Remake
Source: Broadcasting&Cable (p8)
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/
Author: Paige Albiniak
Issue: Public Broadcasting
Description: Last week, House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Billy
Tauzin (R-LA) unveiled legislation intended to start public broadcasting
down the road to reform. The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA),
would create a nine-member bipartisan congressional commission that would
recommend a variety of ways to reform public broadcasting. "Our goal is to
preserve and protect PBS's distinct identity in the next millennium while
providing a new source of long-term funding," said Rep. Tauzin.
Title: Study Finds Cable Pay Inequity
Source: Broadcasting&Cable (p57)
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/
Author: Elizabeth Rathbun
Issue: Minorities/Jobs
Description: A study released last Tuesday by the Women in Cable &
Telecommunications Foundation (WICT) reports that women in cable programming
earned an average of 18.2 percent less than their male counterparts last
year. WICT says that the "average reported base salary in 1997 for women in
cable programming was $59,531, compared with $72,808 for men." If 1996
bonuses are taken into account, the gap grows to 25 percent. The disparities
exist even if the women and men are of similar age, education and job
tenure. WICT was "shocked by the results," says Ann Carlsen, foundation
spokeswoman and president of executive search firm Carlsen Resources Inc.
"We all went into this thing expecting parity, and much to our chagrin,
here's a gap of 18 percent and higher."
** FCC **
Title: McCain Vows to Overhaul FCC
Source: Broadcasting&Cable (p32)
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/
Author: Chris McConnell
Issue: FCC
Description: Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) announced
that he wants to "revamp" the Federal Communications Commission during the
next session of Congress. Addressing all five commissioners, McCain
"blasted" the FCC's performance on a variety of fronts at a Communications
Subcommittee hearing last week, and said that the commission "needs to have
its priorities adjusted, its excess tonnage trimmed and its functions
realigned." McCain added; "To paraphrase Winston Churchill -- as things
stand now, never have so many worked so hard to produce so little for so few."
** Wireless **
Title: New Opportunities for Small Wireless Operators
Source: NTIA
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/speeches/amta615.htm
Author: Assistant Secretary of Commerce Larry Irving
Issue: Wireless
Description: Remarks by Larry Irving at the American Mobile
Telecommunications Association 1998 Leadership Conference, June 15, 1998
** Mergers **
Title: Senate Panel Ponders Long-Term Effect of Mergers
Bill Would Limit Phone Mergers (C2)
Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/mergers-congress.html
Author: Richard Stevenson
Issue: Mergers
Description: The Senate Judiciary Committee debated yesterday if the mergers
reshaping many industries including communications are going too far and
putting workers, consumers and the economy's long-term health at risk. "I
would feel very uncomfortable if we inhibited various different types of
mergers or acquisitions on the basis of some presumed projection as to how
markets would evolve, how technology would evolve, because history is strewn
with people making projections which have turned out to be grossly
inaccurate," said Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board chairman. Robert
Pitofsky, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, voiced a different
opinion: "The problem is that if you challenge the merger before it happens,
it's not very expensive to remedy it. After the merger, after the assets are
scrambled, the employees have been fired, the management has gone elsewhere,
the factories have been sold for junk in some other country, then putting
the company back in business is enormously expensive." Sen Patrick Leahy
(D-VT) will introduce legislation to prevent and of the Baby Bells or GTE
from merging before local competition exists. "Before all the pieces of Ma
Bell are put together again, Congress should revisit the Telecommunications
Act," Sen Leahy said. "Consolidation is taking precedence over competition."
[See also Chicago Trib Sec 3 p.1, "To experts, new wave of mergers is no big
deal" by William Neikirk
http://chicago.tribune.com/business/businessnews/article/0,1051,SAV-9806170
305,00.html
Title: MCI, WorldCom Think EU Will Allow Merger
Source: Washington Post (C14,C18)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-06/17/048l-061798-idx.html
Author: Mike Mills
Issue: Mergers
Description: Top executives at MCI Communications Corp. and WorldCom Inc.
said yesterday that they were optimistic that European regulators would
recommended approval of their merger as early as Friday. "We now feel quite
confident we're at a point where we'll get on with business," said WorldCom
chief executive Bernard J. Ebbers. "We would expect that the recommendation
that is made Friday, if there is one made at the European Commission, would
be one in support of the transaction."
Title: Odds Rise for Telecom Italia-AT&T Deal
Source: Wall Street Journal (A13)
http://wsj.com/
Author: Maureen Kline
Issue: Mergers/International
Description: Telecom Italia SpA'd chairman, Gian Mario Rossignolo, announced
that a deal with Unisource NV was back on track. Unisource is a joint
venture of dominant carriers in Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and
shares business customers with AT&T Corp of the U.S. Thus if Telecom Italia
establishes a traffic-sharing agreement with AT&T and Unisource they would
have to "ditch" a similar deal with Cable & Wireless PLC. "They can't have
an alliance with both," said Deborah McCutcheon, a telecommunications
analyst at Robert Fleming Securities in London, "unless they simply act as a
distributor for both partners' services. If the Unisource deal goes through,
stage two of the Cable & Wireless alliance [to share traffic] is probably
not going to happen."
** Jobs **
Title: Debate Over Visas for Foreign Workers Focuses on Layoffs
Source: New York Times (CyberTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/06/cyber/articles/17visa.html
Author: Jeri Clausing
Issue: Jobs
Description: Figures compiled by the Chicago-based employment firm
Challenger, Grey and Christmas
show that prominent high-tech companies dismissed 121,800 workers from
December, 1997 to June, 1998. U.S. Representative Lamar Smith pointed out
yesterday that these numbers indicate that these well-known companies have
laid off more American workers in the past six months than the number of
temporary foreign workers that information technology companies are lobbying
to bring in over the next three years. Rep. Smith, who is sponsoring a bill
that would increase the number of H1-B visas for skilled temporary foreign
workers, is now finding himself at odds with the high-tech industry over
provisions in his bill that would require companies using the H1-B visas to
certify that U.S. workers are not being laid off in exchange for cheaper
foreign labor.
*********
We would like to extend a special thanks to the Media Access Project for
letting us use their copy of B&C this week (for a few hours only as they
became misty-eyed watching the magazine leave their office -- it holds such
a special place in all of our hearts). We suspect our usual Monday copy was
snatched up by aliens eager to figure us out.