This, from the Financial Times, may have been noted earlier. If so, I apologize for the duplication:
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Americas January 29 1999
CABLE TV: Reprieve on internet services
By Mark Suzman in Washington and Richard Waters in New York
The Federal Communications Commission yesterday backed away from forcing US cable television companies to open their networks to internet service providers, a move that could eventually limit the ways companies such as America Online (AOL) deliver high-speed internet services to American homes.
The decision also appeared to lift one of the main concerns hanging over the pending merger between two giants of the US telecommunications and cable industry, AT&T and TCI. If TCI were forced to give open access over its networks to competitors, it would dent the value of the acquisition for AT&T, the telecoms company's executives have warned.
However, the federal agency said it would keep a close eye on how quickly high-speed internet services developed, leaving open the possibility that it could change its position later.
William Kennard, FCC chairman, indicated that he thought it was too early to decide whether the regulatory agency should act. "It is very, very early in the deployment of this technology," he said at a FCC meeting yesterday. "This is an issue we will have to continue to assess."
A dispute has flared up in recent weeks between the cable TV and internet service industries over the regulation of cable networks in the internet age. Once they have upgraded their networks to carry high-speed data services, the cable companies want to charge a fee to internet companies which rely on their networks, while internet companies have argued that cable systems should be as open as the public telephone networks.
The debate has been accentuated by the pending merger between AT&T, which is trying to compete head-on with AOL, and TCI, whose cable systems could one day form a powerful platform for high-speed internet access.
Mr Kennard said the agency would monitor the issue "very closely" in future. However, he also said he hoped that wireless and satellite technologies would also offer similar services to consumers, providing additional competition.
His comments were echoed by Michael Powell, another member of the five-person commission, who stressed that while the agency should try to "facilitate" access to broadband services where possible, it should strive to use deregulation rather than regulation to do so
Earlier this week, a coalition of consumer and media access groups urged Mr Kennard and the FCC to adopt new rules to ensure competing internet service providers would have mandatory access to cable networks.
Mr Kennard was speaking as the agency approved a report to Congress on the state of public access to the so-called "broadband" technology - high speed internet and data services. The report, which is required by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, concluded that widespread availability of such services was still far away.
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