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To: Cooters who wrote (6222)	2/4/2000 9:26:00 AM
From: Harvey Rosenkrantz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13582

The FCC is now pushing wireless internet. One more for the road!! 05:49 PM ET 02/03/00 FCC Chief Pushes Wireless Internet By KALPANA SRINIVASAN= Associated Press Writer= WASHINGTON (AP) _ The nation's communications chief said Thursday he wants to spread wireless technology across the country quickly to revolutionize Americans' daily life, from the Internet and movies to cars and kitchen appliances. In an interview with The Associated Press, Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard said to achieve that goal, the FCC will auction more slices of the airwaves for wireless technology and draft new standards for digital TV. The delivery of Internet access to wireless devices, such as cellular phones or hand-held computers, opens new doors for American consumers, he said. ''It's going to further democratize the Internet. It's going to make it available to people who can't afford a $5,000 PC in their home,'' Kennard said. To promote that goal, the commission has set a spring date to auction valuable portions of the airwaves that many companies see as ''prime real estate'' for delivering wireless Internet service to people on the road and in their homes. ''The goal is to get as much competition out there as possible,'' Kennard said. Kennard also predicted a change in the way Americans watch TV. He cited the introduction of personal video recorders, which allow people to record shows to a hard drive and assemble channels based on their viewing preferences, as evidence of how the model of traditional TV programming is crumbling. ''Today, television is sort of a passive exercise,'' Kennard said. ''That's going to be seen as very much of an anachronism in the future.'' Consumers will have greater ability to sort and arrange their shows, dissolving the current structure of time slots and scheduled programming, the FCC chief said. ''The whole economic model of the network is going to change pretty dramatically,'' Kennard said, ''because it's not going to be a world in which networks compete to get a certain audience level at a certain period of time. It's going to be about delivering a certain quality of demographics 24-hours-a-day.'' The revolution will be pushed along as the industry makes its transition from analog to digital television, Kennard added. Digital TV allows broadcasters to squeeze more video and data into existing channel space. They could use it to provide sharper pictures or offer additional TV channels for sports or movies, or stock quotes and other data transmitted to home computers. But so far, the road to digital TV has been rocky, because of wrangling over standards to make the new digital systems compatible with cable. That's important because most Americans get their TV via cable. Kennard has set an April 1 deadline for the industry to arrive at a solution. On Thursday, Kennard told the AP he has drafted rules, which he is now circulating to his fellow commissioners, that would force the industry's hand if they aren't able to devise standards. ''Americans need digital TV,'' he said. Addressing the unprecedented wave of mergers in the communications industry, Kennard said his agency must be ''very, very vigilant'' about the repercussions of such mammoth deals. The FCC is currently looking at combinations between long-distance giants MCI and Sprint, cable companies AT&T and MediaOne, and local phone powerhouses Bell Atlantic and GTE, among others. ''There's a lot of pressure on our agency to just rubber stamp them all,'' Kennard said. ''We can't do that because these mergers are fundamentally restructuring the telecommunications industry.'' Kennard also said he has asked his staff to look into the history of a rule that forbids companies from owning two or more networks in certain combinations. If the FCC decides to relax that limit, it could ease the way for the proposed merger between media titans CBS and Viacom _ which also owns a half-interest in the UPN network. The FCC chief also expressed hope that new ways for accessing multichannel programming would help drive down cable rates, which the commission stopped regulating in March. For example, high-speed Internet connections will make it more viable for people to watch movies and TV shows on their home computer, bypassing the typical cable TV outlet, he said. ''It's going to really accelerate a decrease in pricing that people pay for video programming,'' Kennard predicted.