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AOL's Bottom Line

Caller ID Gains, Despite Limitation

U.S. Wants Public Interest Rules For New Digital TV Channels

Big Brother wants to manage the broadcast spectrum again

Clinton Panel to Explore Public Interest in Digital TV

One year after the Telecommunications Act became law --- (ad)

Ameritech Wins Clearance by Michigan to Sell Long-Distance Services
in State

Internet Domain: Cyberspace Expands With New Addresses

One year after the Telecommunications Act became law --- (ad)

New System for Net Addresses Proposed

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Title: AOL's Bottom Line
Author: Robert Stein
Issue: AOL
Description: This oped by a former editor of McCalls and former chairman
of the American Society of Magazine Editors argues that AOL's plight of
lowering rates and then being unable to fully respond to the demand
parallels the challenges faced by magazines in the 1970s. Magazines like
Look and Life kept lowering subscriptions prices to compete with TV for
advertising. Many of magazines gained record numbers of readers then went
under. The question AOL faces is, are advertisers willing to invest and
how can advertisers identify an audience? Also, how will users be able to
evaluate which information is valuable in the all you can eat world of the
Internet. Users may be suffering from what Lew Mumford refers to as,
"deprivation by surfeit."

Title: Caller ID Gains, Despite Limitation
Author: Andree Brooks
Issue: phones
Description: The number of phone subscribers using caller ID is growing.
Over 1 million customers signed up for the service between mid-1995 to
mid-1996 partly because of aggressive advertising campaigns by the phone
companies. Many regional companies, however, don't have the equipment to
support the service. If you don't like caller ID, you can have your line
remain anonymous on the caller ID screens (aka line blocking). If you
don't like people who have anonymous lines, you can block their calls to
your number. Fun for the whole family.

Title: U.S. Wants Public Interest Rules For New Digital TV Channels
Author: Mark Landler
Issue: ATV
Description: The vice president announced yesterday that the
administration wants to put new public interest obligations on broadcasters
in exchange for the extra channels they will receive for the transition to
digital television. Gore said that, "Digital technology will greatly
enhance the opportunities available to broadcasters. The public interest
obligations should be commensurate with these new opportunities." In the
administration's plan, broadcasters would receive the new licenses as
planned, "but in using these new licenses for one or more channels would be
held to a public interest standard at least as stringent as the one they
usually carry." FCC Chairman Hundt has spoken up for stronger public
interest requirements and would rather not give out the licenses until the
broadcasters make a clear commitment to public service programming. The
administration's plan does not go this far. Gore proposed that the
licenses be given out and then a panel of broadcasters, educators, and
others could recommend obligations.

Title: Big Brother wants to manage the broadcast spectrum again
Author: Peter Passell
Issue: FCC
Description: This article describes the tension between competing agendas
on how spectrum should be parceled out, auctions, who should manage the
spectrum, what competition can or can't accomplish, and how the FCC fits
into to it all.

Title: Clinton Panel to Explore Public Interest in Digital TV
Author: WSJ reporter
Issue: ATV
Description: The Clinton Administration will form a panel to recommend
what types of public interest obligations broadcasters should follow as
they move towards broad use of digital television. Though Vice President
Gore did not discuss what specific standards the panel will consider, it
will most likely evaluate free time for candidates, an idea popular with
FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.

Title: One year after the Telecommunications Act became law --- (ad)
Author: America's Local Phone Companies
Issue: Phone reg
Description: Full page ad arguing that local phone companies are doing
their part to serve the American public and to open to competition. Long
distance companies, on the other hand, only want to provide local service
to businesses and the wealthy and they want to do this without "paying
the real costs of using the local phone networks every one else depends
on." The ad encourages people to let the FCC know that the long distance
companies should not be let off the hook.

Title: Ameritech Wins Clearance by Michigan to Sell Long-Distance Services
in State
Author: Leslie Cauley
Issue: Phone reg
Description: A Michigan panel of regulators found that Ameritech met the
check list required by baby bells to enter the long distance market. While
this decision moves Ameritech one step closer to being the first baby bell
in the $80 billion long distance market, the FCC still needs to approve
Ameritech's entry application and decide that the company has fulfilled all
the items on the checklist before anything can happen.

Title: Internet Domain: Cyberspace Expands With New Addresses
Author: Rebecca Quick
Issue: WWW
Description: Overcrowding on the Internet has moved a group led by the
Internet Society, a self-appointed standard setting group for the Internet,
to create a set of new domain names so the Internet won't run out of
distinct address sites. Approximately 85,000 new site names are
registered each month. There are 900,000 names so far and about 90% end in
com. Along with com, edu, gov, org, and mil, we could have seven new names
including firm, store, info, web, arts, nom, rec. There may be great
confusion as organizations decide what names to use.

From the Washington Post (A20) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/)
Title: One year after the Telecommunications Act became law --- (ad)
Author: America's Local Phone Companies
Issue: Phone reg
Description: Same ad as described in WSJ clip

From the Washington Post (C3) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/)
Title: New System for Net Addresses Proposed
Author: David S. Hilzenrath
Issue: WWW
Description: In order to ease crowding and release the monopolistic hold
over domain names by Virginia-based Network Solutions, a group called the
International Ad Hoc Committee, spearheaded by the Internet Society, has
introduced seven new domain names and stated that 28 organizations
worldwide would be chosen by lottery to register the addresses with the new
suffixes. Since the Internet Society has no official power, whether this
plan works will
depend on whether the Internet community goes along with it.

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Telemarketing Finds a Ready Labor Market in Hard-Pressed North Dakota

Global Phone Pact Appears Near But U.S. Conditions May Block It

New Policy by America Online Pressures Content Providers

Paving the Information Highway

Cyberspace Resumes Fit the Modern Job Hunt

Does National Public Radio feel Pressure when foundation donors
specify topics?

DARS delays at FCC

Senate to hold liquor ad hearings

Senate, FCC to hear gripes on TV Ratings

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Title: Telemarketing Finds a Ready Labor Market in Hard-Pressed North Dakota
Author: James Brooke
Issue: Economics
Description: The spread of fiber-optic cable and advances in
telecommunications are bringing jobs to depressed, rural areas. Companies
say that the people in the Dakotas or Montana are appealing job candidates
because they have fairly high levels of education and strong work ethics.
New companies scour the region for untapped groups of farm wives or
Indians. The towns appreciate the business. For many families, a second
salary or medical benefits can help make ends meet. Omaha is the "toll
free" capitol of the nation; Rosenbluth Travel has a reservations center in
Linton, North Dakota; and Minot, North Dakota, has a reservation center for
Quality Inns.

Title: Global Phone Pact Appears Near But U.S. Conditions May Block It
Author: Edmund L. Andrews
Issue: International/phone reg
Description: Negotiators from more than 100 countries are working to
finalize an agreement to open government-protected telecommunication
monopolies to competition. Some negotiators say a deal will be reached by
the Feb. 15 deadline. The European Union's barriers between cable and phone
companies are coming down and the FCC has been pressuring countries to
lower accounting rates. "Accounting rates cover the price of completing
international calls into and out of country, and are often many times more
than their true cost. . . " The US is not certain the agreement will come
together b/c Canada may not scale back restrictions on foreign ownership.
If an agreement is forged, it would give big communications companies like
Sprint and AT&T more access to Latin America and Asia.

Title: New Policy by America Online Pressures Content Providers
Author: Steve Lohr
Issue: Internet Regulation/Content
Description: With the old AOL rate system, the longer a user stayed on a
content provider's site, the more money a content provider got. Now with
the flat rate, content providers, and AOL itself, must rely more heavily on
advertising for revenues. Content providers include businesses that post
information or speciality forums on AOL. AOL executives compare the
network's transitions to the transition undergone by cable systems in the
1970s when cable providers realized that they needed subscription fees and
advertising to stay afloat.

Title: Paving the Information Highway
Author: Seth Schiesel
Issue: Internet growth
Description: According to US News and World Report, one of the best jobs
to have these days is commercial wiring specialist (public interest
advocate for telecommunications policy ran a close second). More and more
businesses rely on Local Area Networks and the Internet to communicate.
According to a research firm in California, spending on cables and
connectors (for private as opposed to national telephone businesses) grew
from $765 million in 1993 to $1.2 billion last year.

Title: Cyberspace Resumes Fit the Modern Job Hunt
Author: David Rampe
Issue: WWW
Description: If one is planning to do an electronic resume, one should
abandon efforts to make Camp Counselor sound like Advanced Child Care
Specialist and should start using terms computers will discover on searches.
Many big tech companies are inputting the resumes they receive into the
computer and then asking the computer to search for candidates with the
desired skills. Forget verbs, work with key words (for example, UCLA,
Unix, fluid dynamics, knitter). There are several sites on the web that
can help job seekers build electronic resumes or post electronic resumes.
Some sites include: Job Smart Resume Guide
http://jobsmart.org/tools/resume/index.htm, Yahoo's Resume Area
http://www.yahoo.com/business_and_economy/Employment/Resumes/Resume_Writ...
Tips/, Career Mosaic's Resume Writing Guide
http://www.careermosaic.com/cm/crc/crc15.html

Title: Does National Public Radio feel Pressure when foundation donors
specify topics?
Author: Iver Peterson
Issue: Journalism/Radio/Media Ownership
Description: National Public Radio receives 25 million from foundation and
corporate giving. Many grants are general; some support coverage of certain
topics like jazz or campaign finance reform. NPR states the organization
has established a firewall between donors and program content. Donors can
only speak to senior editors or the development office, not with the
reporters. Many news organizations receive money from benefactors and
must establish lines
between donors and content.

From Broadcasting & Cable, February 3, 1997 pg. 10
Title: DARS delays at FCC
Author: Chris McConnell
Issue: Satellite
Description: FCC Commissioners are divided about whether to instate public
interest obligations on businesses that provide digital audio radio
satellite service (DARS).

From Broadcasting & Cable, February 3, 1997 pg. 11
Title: Senate to hold liquor ad hearings
Author: Heather Fleming and Harry A. Jessell
Issue: Advertising
Description: Conrad Burns (R-Montana) states that his Senate Communications
Subcommittee or John McCain's (R-Arizona) parent committee (Commerce) will
hold hearings on TV liquor ads. Burns has also made clear, however, that
he would like the liquor industry and the cable companies to try to work
out the issue on their own first.

From Broadcasting & Cable, February 3, 1997 pg. 11
Title: Senate, FCC to hear gripes on TV Ratings
Author: Harry A. Jessell
Issue: V Chip
Description: The Commerce Committee will hear responses to the TV ratings
system from yet-to-be-named witnesses on Feb. 27. The FCC will schedule a
hearing in April or May.

Recommended reading for the web connoisseur: Dilbert, Washington Post
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/)

At the FCC (http://www.fcc.gov)

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