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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tunica Albuginea who wrote (20762)	6/7/1999 5:50:00 PM
From: Steve Robinett	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 41369

TA, You ask,Exactly what in all this do you disagree with? Too much to mention all of it but here's some of it. You say, That Telecom Act applies to telephones; cable TV. It did not apply to the Internet I thought we were talking about carrying Internet access on cable. That's cable content just like TV programing. You say, We are going to have a gazillion people laying fiber optic cable in Portland if it is profitable to do so. The Telecommunications act, which preempted local control of cable, was sold to congress as a form of deregulation, a way to promote competition and lower cable cost to the consumer. It hasn't worked out that way. There is less competition (I have a choice of one or none) and cable bills have gone up all over the country. Instead of a gazillion people laying fiber, we get a monopoly that raises prices at will. You suggest, We need to have common carrier status for copper, airwaves and cable. With a phone, if you can pay for it, you can use it. No problem. The phone company has to give you the line. Not so with airwaves. I cannot buy a transmitter and start transmitting on the frequency of, say, Channel 7, because the government licenses them that chunk of the spectrum, that is, gives them a proprietary interest in that spectrum chunk. Cable is not a necessity, nor is the Internet (Yet). Frankly, if I own the cable company, I'll certainly talk to any of my customers about what they want carried on the cable--I do want them to subscribe--but I will not let them pressure me into carrying this or that. Negotiate usually works better in the world than litigate or legislate. If AOL wants to hitchhike on someone else's cable system, they should make it economically attractive to do business. Best, --Steve