F.C.C. votes to allow TV signals on phone lines: regulatory distinctions continue to fall
Article Abstract:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that telephone companies will be allowed to transmit television programming, but the phone companies will not be allowed to produce programming. The kinds of video programming phone companies would transmit might include movie channels, shopping services and interactive educational programs. In a separate decision, the FCC authorizes new portable-telephone services. The agency plans license 'personal communication services,' starting early in 1993. Such services, which will transmit and receive via radio transmissions, would use pocket-sized wireless telephones, hand-held electronic organizers and two-way paging devices. Before telephone companies can do much with video, they need to replace much of their existing network arrangements, which use copper wiring, with high-capacity fiber-optic cabling. Accomplishing this is likely to require a decade of time. It is estimated that so enormous an upgrade will cost about $400 billion.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1992
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Phone companies could transmit TV under F.C.C. plan; blow to cable industry: viewers expected to benefit from many more choices - new lines needed
Article Abstract:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposes to allow local telephone companies to do television programming. Customers would use a 'video dial tone' to see programs of their choice, being charged for what they watched. The FCC's proposal will probably be accepted within a year. Cable companies, which would compete with phone companies, will fight to prevent acceptance. At first, telephone companies would probably transmit programs, but the FCC's proposal would not stop them from packaging video services as well, requiring only that phone companies open their networks for use by other programmers. The FCC's proposal will not be so significant immediately as it is likely to be in the long term: telephone companies need to invest billions of dollars, upgrading to fiber-optic networks, because television transmissions require communications channels that accommodate massive volumes of data.
Publication Name: The New York Times
Subject: News, opinion and commentary
ISSN: 0362-4331
Year: 1991
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