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To: ahhaha who wrote (5483)	2/17/1999 4:44:00 PM
From: Michael P. Michaud	Respond to of 29970

More Great news, all....although this was expected: Wednesday February 17, 3:11 pm Eastern Time AT&T-TCI Merger Wins FCC Approval By JEANNINE AVERSA Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators agreed today to give AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T - news) permission to acquire cable giant TCI in a deal that could give consumers one-stop shopping -- from local calling to high-speed Internet access -- over cable TV lines. Federal Communications Commission officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agency voted to clear the deal, which was valued at nearly $32 billion when it was announced in June. But the action isn't considered official and final until the commission publicly releases information on the order. It's not clear when that will be. Details weren't available, but the FCC officials said no major conditions were imposed on the merger. AT&T declined to comment until the FCC publicly releases information on its action. For consumers, the merger holds the promise of providing a new choice for local phone service -- a prospect appealing to regulators, who want to crack open local phone monopolies to competition. The FCC, however, did not force AT&T and TeleCommunications Inc. to provide other companies with access to TCI's high-speed cable TV lines, FCC sources said. Consumer groups, America Online and others had been pressing for the agency to require AT&T to give other companies access to those lines to offer competing services. Shareholders of AT&T overwhelmingly approved the deal at a meeting this morning in New Jersey. And a majority of TCI's shareholders, meeting in Colorado, approved the deal later in the day. The merger plan must also be approved by local cable franchising authorities. Some local authorities want to provide rivals access to TCI's high-speed lines, but it's unclear if they would have the authority to force any changes. AT&T is the nation's largest telecommunications company and biggest provider of mobile phone services. TCI is the nation's second-largest cable TV company, with lines reaching one-third of all U.S. homes. Many of those TCI lines have been upgraded to permit cable TV customers to connect their computers to the Internet and access online data at speeds as much as 100 times faster than conventional telephone lines. Eventually, AT&T intends to make TCI's lines capable of providing customers with local phone service, too. AT&T has a separate agreement with cable company Time Warner to provide local phone service over its high-speed cable TV lines. More cable agreements are expected. The cable agreements would give AT&T a way to get into homes without having to rely on phone lines controlled by the regional Bell companies, which dominate the local phone market. Through the merger, AT&T also will control TCI's stake in AtHome Corp., a leading provider of high-speed Internet access. Consumer groups have said AT&T could charge consumers extra if they got their Internet service over the merged companies' lines but wanted another Internet service provider, such as AOL. But federal regulators are not expected to set any conditions on that part of the deal. The Justice Department approved the merger in December on the condition that TCI sell its interest in a rival mobile phone company, Sprint PCS. Last month, the FCC declined to open a proceeding that would force all cable companies to share their high-speed lines with rivals. But the agency said it would monitor the situation to make sure cable companies don't freeze out their rivals. Consumer groups and AOL have pressed for the same mandatory access requirements they sought in the merger to apply to all cable companies. AT&T and TCI support voluntary agreements for businesses offering competing services to gain access to their high-speed cable lines. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More Quotes and News: America Online Inc (NYSE:AOL - news) AT&T Corp (NYSE:T - news) Related News Categories: computers, ISDEX, telecom

To: ahhaha who wrote (5483)	2/17/1999 4:51:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 29970

While attempts may be made to delineate or firewall certain 'basic' services within a larger basket of services, such multi-dimensionalism can only be short-lived. Convergence on the desktop, and in our everyday lives, is taking place at too rapid a pace for that to be a viable long term strategy. Boundaries can be created between the three (voice, data and video), but at some point those boundaries will only serve to define the limitations of each, when in another year or two enhanced multimedia services (by today's standards) begin to take off and proliferate. Having said that, and after addressing your points in a congenial manner similar to yours, I think I'll go take a nap...