Stymied, SBC Seeks to Void Portion of Law
SBC Files Challenge to Telecom Law
Why Is AT&T Afraid to Compete?
AT&T and Italy's Stet Are Teaming Up As U.S. Giant Plays Catch-Up Overseas
Clinton Supports Internet "Hands Off" Policy
click.on.art
Chairman Hundt Praises New Electronic Commerce Report
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Title: Stymied, SBC Seeks to Void Portion of Law
Source: New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/(D1)
Author: Mark Landler
Issue: Phone Regulation
Description: Local phone monopoly SBC is suing the Government claiming that
a portion of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which restricts the Baby
Bells from entering the long distance market is unconstitutional. The suit
was filed one week after the company was denied entry to Oklahoma's long
distance market. A representative for AT&T said the legal action is "a slap
in the face of the Congress, the FCC and competition."
Title: SBC Files Challenge to Telecom Law
Source: Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/ (A3)
Author: Bryan Gruley, John J. Keller, and Leslie Cauley
Issue: Phone Regulation
Description: SBC Communications, the southwestern Baby Bell, is going to
court to prove that the Telecommunication Act's regulations on what Baby
Bells need to do to enter the long-distance market are unfairly more
difficult than the regulations for independent local carriers like GTE to
enter long distance. The suit follows the FCC's decision last week that SBC
could not start providing long distance service in Oklahoma because it had
not sufficiently opened its local market to competitors. "SBC's lawsuit is
yet more evidence that Congress's attempt to open the nation's telecom
markets to competition is thus far a failure. Instead of invading one
another's phone, video and other communications markets, potential rivals
have squared off in scores of lawsuits filed in state and federal courts
across the country."
Title: Why Is AT&T Afraid to Compete?
Source: Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/ (A10)
Author: Duane Ackerman
Issue: Phone Competition
Description: Duane Ackerman, CEO of BellSouth, responds to AT&T Chairman
Allen's comments that Baby Bells are stalling the development of competition
by being laggard in opening their local markets. Ackerman contends that the
Baby Bells can't get into the long distance market until they prove that
there is competition in their local markets, but that AT&T and other
long-distance carriers are intentionally not trying to enter the local
markets so that the Baby Bells will continue to be denied access to the
lucrative long distance market. "It profits AT&T to stay out of residential
service to the tune of $1.6 billion a year in the nine states Bell South
serves. That's the share of the long distance market that economic analyses
suggest Bell South would take if it were allowed to
enter the long-distance market."
Title: AT&T and Italy's Stet Are Teaming Up As U.S. Giant Plays Catch-Up
Overseas
Source: Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/ (B6)
Author: Gautam Naik and Maureen Kline
Issue: International, mais oui!
Description: AT&T has made a deal with Italy's Stet, the national
phone carrier and the fifth biggest phone company in the world. This
agreement should give AT&T a much needed boost in its efforts to stay
competitive in the European phone market. MCI has already been bought by
British Telecommunications, and Sprint Co. sold a chunk of itself to Germany
and France's national carriers. AT&T and Stet will cosponsor a venture to
provide phone and data services in Latin America.
Title: Clinton Supports Internet "Hands Off" Policy
Source: Telecommunications Reports Daily
http://www.tr.com/netline/netline.html
Issue: Electronic Commerce
Description: To enable the rapid development of electronic commerce, the
Clinton Administration will adopt a "hands off" policy toward the Internet.
"In the 21st Century, we can build much of our prosperity on innovations in
cyberspace in ways that most of us cannot even
imagine," President Clinton said. Recommendations in the report include
declaring the Internet a tariff-free environment, industry self-regulation,
and private sector development of a market-driven, not regulated industry.
[The full report is available at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/Commerce/] [ For a brief time only, see
http://www.newsworks.com/NewsWorks/scitech/0,1163,,00.html for coverage of
the report from around the country]
Title: click.on.art
Source: Sun Spot Today http://www.sunspot.net/
Author: Holly Selby
Issue: Arts/Internet
Description: An increasing number of art gallery owners are setting up shop
on the Internet. They find it to be an inexpensive way to showcase artists'
new work, biographies, calendars listing future exhibitions, "even virtual
reality galleries, where artworks appear to be hanging on the gallery
walls." One gallery owner says, "You can make a lot of decisions about what
you might like without ever going to a gallery. This doesn't take the place
of looking at an original work of art, but you can get a really good idea of
what's out there and what you like and don't like."
[For more information see Open Studio at http://www.openstudio.org/]
At the FCC http://www.fcc.gov
Chairman Hundt Praises New Electronic Commerce Report
http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Hundt/spreh736.html
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Have a safe and happy 4th. We'll be back -- right-eyed and bushy-tailed on
Monday.