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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mr.mark who wrote (15857)	6/5/1998 3:54:00 AM
From: Scrapps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

Mr. Mark you have a point for sure.

To: mr.mark who wrote (15857)	6/5/1998 7:36:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 22053

Lawmakers ask FCC to halt Internet subsidy program Reuters Story - June 04, 1998 23:20 %US %WASH %TEL %ENT %BUS %DPR %PUB %EDU %NEWS T MCIC V%REUTER P%RTR WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) - Four powerful U.S. lawmakers on Thursday warned the Federal Communications Commission to halt a multibillion-dollar subsidy program that helps schools and libraries connect to the Internet. In an unusual display of bipartisanship, the Republican chairmen and top Democrats on both the Senate and House Commerce committees sent a letter to FCC chairman William Kennard asking him to suspend the program, which is funded mostly by long-distance phone companies. In the past week, AT&T Corp. and MCI Communications Corp. have said they would add surcharges of at least 5 percent to long-distance calls to pay for their share of the program and longstanding subsidies that support basic phone service in low-income and rural areas. "Consumers' phone bills are set to increase," wrote Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Thomas Bliley of Virginia, along with Democratic Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan. "This is not what we intended when Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996," they added, calling the FCC's implementation "a spectacular failure." The FCC had been slated to address the schools and libraries program at a hastily called meeting on June 9, but on Thursday, the agency canceled the session. More than 30,000 schools and libraries have requested $2 billion this year from the Schools and Libraries Corp., which administers the program. Supporters of the program said long-distance companies were to blame for adding surcharges at the same time the FCC had lowered by billions of dollars access charges the companies must pay to local phone carriers. Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat, wrote letters to the heads of AT&T and MCI on Thursday asking the companies to support the schools and libraries fund because the 1996 law also offered them new opportunities for profit. "Congress passed a law that opened vast new opportunities for profit to you, and you are now complaining about about sharing a small piece of a growing pie," he wrote. Kerrey said he would introduce legislation requiring the companies to display their profits on customers' bills alongside the new surcharges. And Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who has helped rally support for the program in Congress, asked fellow lawmakers to "just cool their jets a little bit and look at the hard work that's going on in the communities." Libraries also weighed in to back the program. "It's absolutely essential that the program not be put on hold," said Barbara Ford, president of the American Library Association. "Without the discounted telecommunications rates, it's going to be difficult for many libraries to be able to afford to provide the kind of access they need to provide."