[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 44 (Thursday, March 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3693-S3694]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     THE CONGRESS CAN BREAK THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY STALEMATE

  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, for more than 10 years the Congress has 
deferred to Federal courts on making and shaping telecommunications 
policy. Antitrust law intended to remedy anticompetitive practices when 
AT&T dominated all facets of America's telecommunications services is 
the basis of court controlled communications policy. The resulting 
breakup of AT&T in 1983-84 under Judge Greene's modified final judgment 
is still the policy basis for keeping the brakes on the future 
development of this critical industry: Telecommunications is the engine 
of America's continuing race into the information age.
  Technical complexities and the massive scale of economic returns for 
potential competitors in the industry have made it difficult to arrive 
at any industry-led agreement on fair and just terms for bringing full 
competition to reality. Certainly such an agreement would simplify 
congressional efforts to unleash the industry from Federal court edicts 
so that the benefits of open competition will bring new and lower cost 
services, increased employment, and a continually improved 
telecommunications infrastructure.
  Right now, Mr. President, between 50 and 65 percent of all U.S. jobs 
involve information processing, goods, or services; 90 percent of jobs 
created over the last 10 years were information related.
  But there is more to come if we in the Congress can fashion 
reasonable legislation for evenhanded treatment of potential major 
competitors. Telecom giants are poised to spend billions over the 
coming 10 years to restructure their networks. One estimate of capital 
spending by the Bell companies alone on the information highway for 
equipment and infrastructure between 1994 and 1998 is $25 to $50 
billion.
  Mr. President, I believe that we can supercharge and sustain this 
potential growth if we fashion communications laws that will assure all 
telecommunications competitors that each of them will have a fair 
chance to thrive in fully competitive markets. We have a situation now 
in which each competitor is fearful of a law that will give an unfair 
advantage to equally powerful competitors.
  As I see it, Mr. President, the key to establishing open competition 
in telecommunications is to deliver a fair process for freeing the grip 
that Bell operating companies now have on the local exchange system. 
Ideally, Mr. President, if any telecom carrier can have interference-
free, open access to the local exchange to fully compete for the 
delivery of telecommunications, video, and information services to 
homes and businesses and at the same time allow for the regional Bells 
to have access to and the ability to provide long distance service for 
their customers, we would have created the stimulus for maximum growth 
in this industry.
  But the Bell operating companies, Mr. President, are understandably 
reluctant about engaging in a process of enabling open access to the 
local exchange if it means tying their hands while equally strong 
competitors are raiding their customer bases. I am considering 
legislation that would require the Bells to provide to competitors 
interconnection to Bell company local exchange switches; provide access 
to network features on an itemized basis; provide technology that will 
allow consumers to move to a competitor and keep the same telephone 
number, and take other steps to assure State and Federal regulators 
that their systems are open to full competition.
  The Bells are concerned, Mr. President, that this process of opening 
up the local loop under some legislative proposals will not be 
satisfied until 
[[Page S3694]] competitors: Long distance, cable television, electric 
utility companies with massive capital, and customer bases of their own 
will have permanently eroded Bell Co. customer bases. This is not a 
situation, Mr. President, of a world-dominant AT&T competition with and 
upstart, customer-poor MCI in the early 1980's. Major Bell company 
competitors are customer are customer rich, and they are capital rich. 
They are more than capable, Mr. President, of competing on a level 
playing field.
  I have discussed these issues and my suggestions with the Long 
Distance Companies Coalition, with cable television representatives, 
and with Bell company executives, and they agree that my idea offers a 
possible compromise and is worth further discussion.
  I believe that if we can assure each competitor, region by region, 
that none of them is to have a headstart or an unfair advantage in the 
race to acquire customers for new services, that we can reach an 
accommodation that will lead to the passage of important and far-
reaching telecommunications legislation in 1995.
  I believe that we can do this, and I believe it is urgent that the 
Congress direct our attention to this in this session. I urge my 
colleagues to help and join me in crafting a workable telecommunication 
fair competition amendment. I think my suggestion is one that can be 
ultimately agreed to by both the long distance carriers, the cable 
companies, as well as the regional Bells. It is an idea and a concept 
that needs further discussion, further debate, and further exploration 
by the various interests that are going to be affected by it. I think 
it does provide us an opening which I think is significant and one that 
hopefully the companies and people affected will take advantage of.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.

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