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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 30, 1993                   TAG: 9303300096
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BOUCHER TRIES AGAIN WITH CABLE TV BILL

For the third time in as many years, Rep. Rick Boucher has introduced a bill that would allow telephone companies to provide cable television service to their customers.

"Our bill provides telephone companies with the economic incentives to modernize the telecommunications infrastructure," Boucher said Monday in Washington.

The legislation "opens the way for competition in the cable television market by lifting the restriction contained in the 1984 Cable Act which prevents telephone companies from offering cable TV service in their telephone service areas."

Boucher, D-Abingdon, said passage of the bill - set aside during the last session of Congress in favor of legislation re-regulating cable TV rates - would lead to lower cable rates, improved service and a state-of-the-art telecommunications system.

Bell Atlantic, parent of C&P Telephone Co. of Virginia, hailed Boucher's bill, calling it the "next logical step" toward delivering new services to cable television consumers. - Staff report

by CNB