Stevens Calls for Hearing on Mergers
Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) hopes to hold a hearing on mergers before marking up a telecom bill, he said Thurs. at a hearing focusing on telecom industry convergence. “The proposed AT&T-Bell South merger would certainly alter the communications landscape in this country, and is likely to trigger additional transactions,” said Ranking Member Inouye (D-Hawaii), who wants the committee to examine the merger “specifically.”
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It “remains to be seen” whether such consolidation would boost competition, Inouye said. But convergence is “creating a new generation of communication service providers and a new set of options for consumers,” he said, noting that was the intent of Congress with the ‘96 Communications Act.
The ‘96 law shortchanged consumers, Mark Cooper, dir.- research, Consumer Federation of America, said: “All we're left with is the false promise of competition from 1996 and the farcical declarations from cable and telephone giants that a duopoly market is vigorously competitive.” Congress should set a competition policy that serves public interests, explicitly bars bias in interconnection and carriage, bolsters universal service, frees spectrum for unlicensed devices and adopts a pro-competitive stance to “correct for the abuses of a duopoly market structure.”
Sen. DeMint (R-S.C.) suggested abandoning the regulatory structure. “If we really want competition… why don’t we just let it go, protect the consumer and see later if we need to create a regulatory structure,” said DeMint. Industry quickly pushed back at him. “New Zealand tried it and it didn’t work,” said CompTel Pres. Earl Comstock: “We really do need some rules if you want to continue innovation,” he said, echoed by NCTA Pres. Kyle McSlarrow.
Stevens asked panelists to give written answers by next week to the question of how the bill could promote competition and cut prices. Other panelists included CTIA Pres. Steve Largent, USTelecom Pres. Walter McCormick and Jerry Ellig, senior research fellow at George Mason U.