Copyright 1999 Times Publishing Company
St.
Petersburg Times
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February 11, 1999, Thursday, 0 South Pinellas
Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; EDITORIALS; Pg. 20A
LENGTH: 276 words
HEADLINE:
Hope for local phone competition
BODY:
Recent
developments in the telecommunications industry could mean Tampa Bay residents
will see competition in the local telephone market, if not in this century,
perhaps in the next. The operative word here is could. Competition, the primary
argument for deregulation of the industry in 1996, has yet to flourish in the
local market. An announcement by AT&T and a recent U.S. Supreme Court
decision could be the break consumers have been waiting for.
AT&T
said recently it is joining forces with Time-Warner Inc. to sell local telephone
service over cable lines. Tampa Bay represents Time Warner's second largest
market after New York City, with 800,000 subscribers. Tampa Bay's local
telephone service is dominated by GTE Corp., which along with the baby Bell
companies has managed to keep challengers out of the local markets, even though
it has entered the long-distance market.
AT&T is completing its
purchase of Tele-Communications Inc., the No. 2 cable company, and will offer
local services in some of its cable markets. At least one long-distance company
now has gained broad access to local markets.
Meanwhile, the U.S.
Supreme Court decision has restored authority to the Federal Communications
Commission to set access fees by which long-distance carriers can rent space on
local providers' networks. This part of the Telecommunications Act
of 1996 was supposed to encourage competition by removing the necessity
for challengers to build entire networks.
All of this is encouraging.
AT&T said it plans to offer local telephone service in some of Time Warner's
markets by the end of the year. Let's hope one of them is Tampa Bay.
LOAD-DATE: February 11, 1999
