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Technology Stocks : CAWS - Wireless Cable (New and Improved) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FraudBuster who wrote (5531)	8/7/1998 12:27:00 PM
From: FraudBuster	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5812

More of the same... August 7, 1998 FCC Offers Plan for Competition In Video Services, Internet Access By JOHN SIMONS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission moved to spur competition in video-services markets, agreeing to heighten enforcement of rules requiring that cable operators offer their programs to satellite-television services and other rivals. The FCC said the plan would help lower rates. Surveys show cable rates rising at roughly seven times the rate of inflation over the last year. The agency's jurisdiction over cable prices is set to expire on March 31, 1999. Thursday's proposal sets time limits for the FCC to resolve programming-access disputes and charges of pricing discrimination. But critics said it won't solve the problem of rising cable rates. "It's preposterous to suggest that this will do anything to benefit cable consumers in the near future," said Gene Kimmelman, co-director of Consumer Union's Washington office. "It's disappointing that the FCC refuses to do the one thing they have the power to do that would directly benefit consumers: put a lid on cable rates." As expected, the FCC also introduced a plan to speed the deployment of high-speed Internet services to consumers. Under it, local telephone carriers could set up a separate affiliate to roll out high-speed data services, without the restrictions normally attached to the use of those lines. Scott Cleland, an analyst with Legg Mason Precursor Group, said the plan is "the first investment-relevant regulatory victory the Bells have had in two-and-a-half years. It's like asking a swimmer if he'd like to swim without a cannonball under his arm,"" Mr. Cleland said. But some long-distance companies, including AT&T Corp. and MCI Communications Corp., complained it would give the Bells an unfair advantage in the emerging market. Rick Bailey, AT&T's vice president of government affairs, said the company fears the subsidiary arrangement "is not sufficient to prevent the Bell companies from using their enormous monopoly power ..." AT&T's proposed merger with Tele-Communications Inc. would pit the combined company against local Bell companies in offering high-speed data services. The agency also proposed rules that will allow U.S. long-distance companies more flexibility in negotiating phone-traffic transfer rates with foreign telecommunications firms. The change would only apply to countries where there is telecom competition-including most of Europe, Latin America and Japan. This is just more of the same thing that could have been for us had this "management" not run CAWS into the ground through their fraud and misrepresentation. Who knows, maybe "management" knew or had a strong inkling that these FCC actions were going to occur in the very near future and, knowing this, chose to file for bankruptcy protection and reap all of the future profit potential for themselves and Merrill Lynch.