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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2395)	1/27/1999 7:20:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3178

FCC delays two telecom issues after court ruling Thanks to ahhaha on the ATHM thread Tuesday January 26, 11:19 pm Eastern Time WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission has decided to delay voting on two proposals affecting Internet and telecommunications services while it studies Monday's complex Supreme Court ruling, agency officials said on Tuesday. The first delayed item, which the agency had been scheduled to adopt at its Jan. 28 meeting, was a long-awaited order that telephone calls by computer users to Internet service providers were like long distance calls and therefore subject to federal authority. The agency was also scheduled to release proposals to speed the deployment of high-speed Internet services as required by Section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Both measures were to be put on hold while agency lawyers studied the Supreme Court decision that revived FCC rules requiring dominant carriers to lease access to their networks to competitors, FCC officials said. The decision gave the FCC clearer authority over some parts of the market, but required the agency to take a more limited approach on some issues. Neither item was expected to be significantly changed due to the high court decision, but the reasoning behind the proposals could be rewritten, the officials said. GTE Corp. (NYSE:GTE - news) and the regional Bell companies on Monday suggested that the Supreme Court ruling required the FCC to scrap much of its Section 706 proposal for high-speed Internet access. But agency officials said they did not expect that any changes in the proposal because of the court decision would be so very far-reaching. Officials were hesitant to predict how much time the agency would require to rework the items, but one official said the delay was likely to be a matter of weeks, not months. The FCC was still expected to release at Thursday's meeting a factual report on the current status of high-speed Internet services, as required by the Telecom Act.