Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 1, 1990                   TAG: 9004020203
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FIBER OPTICS

The bill would allow regional telephone companies to offer cable-television services along with the voice and data lines that they provide now. To accomplish that, the phone companies would replace metal wires with fiber optics, thin strands of glass that have the capacity to carry huge quantities of information. The phone companies would then give their customers a choice among competing cable systems based on price and programming.

A little background:

In 1984, the cable industry was deregulated. Individual companies have monopolies in the areas they serve; rates have steadily increased, by as much as 100 percent in some parts of Virginia. Also in 1984, restrictions were imposed on the regional "Baby Bell" companies. According to the consent decree signed with Judge Harold Greene during the breakup of AT&T, the regional companies could not provide additional services or manufacture telephone equipment. The Cable Competition Act would remove those fetters and make the companies major players in the information market.

Boucher argues that his bill would provide three immediate benefits:

Competition, not reregulation, would control cable TV rates.

Cable service would be improved through the greater variety offered by fiber optics.

America's communication infrastructure would be modernized more quickly because the Baby Bells would have so much to gain financially from the spread of fiber optics.

If the legislation is passed, Boucher estimates that virtually all of rural America could be wired with fiber optics in 10 to 15 years. Whether that optimistic prediction is correct or not, the spread of fiber optics is the next step in the communications revolution. Any legislation that facilitates its introduction on a large scale is worth serious consideration.

But telecommunications is a complex, tricky field. This bill means a lot more than bringing "Dallas" and "Masterpiece Theater" to the remote parts of Wise County.

Fiber optics will be as significant a development for communications in the 1990s as the personal computer was in the 1980s. Beyond their increased data-carrying capacity, fiber-optic lines are much more flexible. They open the way to true interactive communications. Home banking, shopping and electronic mail are only the visible tip of this vast iceberg. The most important changes that fiber optics will effect are probably unimaginable today.

But who should control those changes?

A report from the Consumer Federation of America and the American Association of Retired Persons says that centralized control by the telephone companies is the wrong route to take. If the phone companies control the technology, the report argues, the diversified innovations taking place in communications today will be stifled. The phone companies might "cross-subsidize" the costs of fiber-optic wiring by dipping into funds provided by their current customers. And, the report says, the first to reap the benefits of this new technology would probably be affluent urban and suburban users. Rural customers, along with the low-income and the elderly, would be the last to see the benefits of fiber optics.

That last point may be correct, but the existing telecommunications arrangement certainly isn't going to promote the spread of fiber optics into rural areas any more quickly. More serious are questions about the amount of power that the telephone companies should have.

Boucher's legislation would place them under the control of the Federal Communications Commission, though Rep. Mike Synar, D-Okla., said it would "take an FCC the size of the Pentagon" to oversee such powerful companies. The idea of any company having too much control over the distribution and content of a powerful new technology is frightening.

Boucher's immediate goal, to bring cable to areas that don't have it and aren't likely to get it anytime soon, is a good one. So is the larger goal of creating a nationwide fiber-optic network.

The question, however, is the proper way to reach those goals. It's difficult to see how the congressman's bill holds much promise of any significant speed-up in the cabling of rural America. And it's equally difficult to see how putting a fiber-optic network in the hands of the regional telephone monopolies would benefit the nation.