THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 26, 1994 TAG: 9410260458
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
At first glance, Hampton Roads appears to be one of the regions most likely to be greatly affected by the wireless-network partnership announced Tuesday involving Sprint Corp. and three of the nation's largest cable-TV operators.
Sprint Cellular is one of two cellular operators in Hampton Roads. And Cox Cable Communications Inc. and Tele-Communications Inc., which joined with Comcast Corp. in the Sprint-led partnership, are the two largest cable operators in the region.
But because Virginia has some of the strictest laws and regulations against competition in telecommunications, Hampton Roads phone users may initially be shut out of some of the new services and cost savings that Sprint and its partners promise to deliver.
``Our key concern locally is to break down the legislative barriers to get us into the local phone loop,'' Franklin R. Bowers, vice president and general manager of Cox's Hampton Roads system, said Tuesday.
The single biggest restriction in Virginia is a state law prohibiting competition in local-exchange phone service. Unless the law is repealed or overridden by a national law, Sprint and its cable partners cannot challenge monopolies like Bell Atlantic-Virginia and GTE-Virginia in providing such a service.
Those restrictions also could greatly hamper the Sprint-led partnership's plans for capitalizing on a new-generation phone technology called Personal Communications Services. The Federal Communications Commission is planning to auction licenses for PCS starting in December.
Even though palm-size PCS phones themselves are intended to be wireless, the voice anddata transmissions to and from PCS phones would be transported in bulk most efficiently over so-called ``landline'' networks like cable systems. But again, state laws like Virginia's could stand in the way of utilizing the cable lines for that purpose, Bowers said.
Del. George H. Heilig Jr., chairman of the House Corporations, Insurance and Banking Committee, earlier this year introduced a bill that would practically eliminate Virginia's competitive barriers in telecommunications. The bill was tabled in committee. Heilig said Tuesday he will push it toward a vote in the next General Assembly session that starts in January.
``For Virginia to stay on top and attract technology into the state, from a competitive standpoint, I think telecommunications should be opened up,'' the lawmaker said.
Steve Dykes, a Sprint spokesman, said he is confident that eventually Sprint and its partners will be unfettered - not just in Virginia, but across the country. Congress nearly passed a nationwide telecommunications-reform bill this year, he pointed out.
Sprint intends to rely heavily on cable operators like Cox and TCI in selling its phone services, Dykes said. The first step will come in the first quarter of 1995, when the cable companies begin promoting Sprint's long-distance services. He said Sprint and its cable partners are working on a plan that will allow customers to get one bill for both long-distance phone and cable-TV services, perhaps as early as next year.
That one-bill concept, he said, will eventually be expanded to include local, cellular and PCS phone services as well. And someday, he said, someone moving to a city like Virginia Beach will be able to call a single number and have cable TV, plus local, long-distance, cellular and/or PCS phone services all installed the same day. by CNB