FCC may allow better in-home Net connections
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Internet users frustrated by agonizingly long
waits to visit their favorite Web sites could get some relief under a
government proposal to encourage high-speed data connections for
homes.
The Federal Communications Commission today proposed giving
incentives to local phone companies to encourage them to build the
expensive infrastructure needed for such connections. The final plan
could be adopted by year's end.
''Most Americans ... are getting very used to high speed Internet
access in the office. They go home and it's the World Wide Wait and
it's very frustrating,'' said FCC Chairman Bill Kennard. ''We want to
bring that same high bandwidth capacity into every home in America.''
As Internet use soars, so does congestion on the telecommunications
networks that people use to tap into the Internet. A voice phone call
lasts, on average, three or four minutes. When people go online, they
average 28 minutes.
Local, long-distance, satellite, cable and wireless companies are in a
race to create lucrative high-speed connections to homes. The FCC
will be exploring ways to give other companies incentives to build fast
connections into the home, too.
Bell Atlantic, for instance, plans to offer in some markets this fall a
connection that is 250 times faster than is offered by a typical desktop
computer modem. Consumers would be charged an installation fee
and would have to buy a special modem. Customers also would pay
a monthly fee for various packages of service.
But regional telephone companies Bell Atlantic, US West, Ameritech
and SBC say current regulations discourage them from building such
networks inside their own local phone regions.
They want the FCC to use its powers under a 1996 law to remove
regulatory barriers hindering development of these advanced
networks.
The FCC proposed giving the Bell companies and other major local
phone providers, such as GTE, some regulatory relief in the delivery
of high-speed data services but with certain conditions.
Under the proposal, the local companies would not have to discount
new high-speed services to rivals as they are already required to do
with other services. They would, however, still be required to lease
these services to competitors.
And the phone companies would be free to set consumer prices for
interstate data services without first filing price information with the
FCC. State authorities, however, would decide whether to regulate
consumer prices of data services offered in their states.
In exchange for these changes, the local companies would have to
lease crucial pieces of their networks so other companies could
provide competing high-speed data services.
The local companies also would have to provide their data services
through a separate affiliate. The FCC believes this is crucial to
preventing the Bells and other entrenched local phone companies
from using their monopoly power to block rivals from offering
competing services.
The affiliated company would be required to provide the same
services at the same terms to rivals as it receives from its parent.
The FCC is not expected to grant the Bells' request to let them
directly offer data services across local calling boundaries, which
would constitute a ''long-distance'' service, something they are
currently forbidden from offering.
In other action, the FCC is expected to:
--Beef up enforcement of rules requiring cable programmers to make
shows available to satellite TV companies and other cable
competitors.
--Propose giving U.S. phone companies more flexibility in cutting
deals with foreign carriers to terminate calls in countries that don't
have much competition. Regulators hope this will make it cheaper for
U.S. customers to call most Latin American countries.
-- Adopt rules for public safety groups to eventually get more slices of
the public airwaves to coordinate communications, and to provide
services such as wireless transmission of fingerprints and mug shots to
and from police cars. |
