All of these restrictions remain essential to ensure against repetition of past predation by the Bell Companies. This fact is self-evident upon a brief examination of their continuing misconduct. Since entry of the MFJ, the Bell Companies have launched an all-out campaign against cable companies seeking to expand into non-video services. Numerous regulatory proceedings as well as forms of Bell Company "self-help" have been instituted to impede innovative services by cable. One particularly graphic illustration involved a Bell telephone company actually trying to have cable company employees arrested for attempting to string fiber on telephone company poles.7 To date, unfair competition by Bell Companies has encompassed facilities and non-video services competition. But there can be no doubt that if the restrictions on content were lifted, the Bell Companies' campaigns would be extended to these services as well. The restriction on Bell Company entry into information the goal of both services promotes consumer welfare misinformation has circulated as to the scope and thus the of the MFJ and Cable Act bans on telco provision of cable. 7 The Bell Companies will tell you that See Comments of New England Cable Television Association, submitted to the Federal Communications Commission, CC Docket No. 87-266 (filed December 16, 1988). these restrictions prevent video distribution competition and/or that they prohibit the availability of new technologies, But the truth is that the such as fiber optics, to consumers. Bell Companies are free to deploy fiber, or any other distribution technology. They are also free to provide video transport, construction, and maintenance services, such as Pacific Bell provides in Palo Alto and C&P provides here in the District of Columbia. What they are not allowed to do is to provide content. Whether that content happens to be television or the electronic word, this policy remains ultimately sound. The central importance of diversity to our society has always made enforcement of Sherman Act principles all the more critical when competition in First Amendment activities is threatened. In such cases, the Sherman Act protects not only economic efficiency, it preserves the broad availability of information from a multitude of speakers. The consent decree and its line-of-business restrictions have well served U.S. consumers, and they should not be altered. There have been no changes in the competitive or regulatory environment that would warrant removal of the line-of-business restrictions. Although there is a lot of talk about "new" safeguards, there is little basis for believing that regulatory solutions can be effective. It bears emphasis that 1989's so-called new safeguards are really not significantly different from those that failed miserably in the 1960's and 1970's. And as the Justice Department explained At the heart of the government's case in United Neither of these problems (of discrimination and cross-subsidization) has thus far proven amenable Thus, permitting BOC entry into competitive markets BOC entry into electronic publishing generally, and cable TV specifically, would thus be an open invitation to the types of anticompetitive behavior that resulted in the divestiture. Only if and when the Bell Companies lose their monopoly in local distribution or circumstances otherwise dramatically change, will it be appropriate to consider modifying the Decree. In the meantime, the MFJ provides the only effective way of promoting and protecting the growth of information services markets in the United States. If I may, I would like to submit for the record an NCTA paper which reviews the documented abuses committed by the Bell Companies since divestiture. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Response of the United States, 47 Fed. Reg. 23,320, 23,336 (1982). THE COSTS OF TELEPHONE COMPANY ENTRY INTO THE TELEVISION BUSINESS: A REVIEW OF TELEPHONE COMPANY ANTICONSUMER AND ANTICOMPETITIVE BEHAVIOR NCTA Position Paper March 1989 Research and Policy Analysis Department Washington, DC 20036 (202) 775-3680 |