THE FACT THAT CONGRESS stalled progress on the "information superhighway" in the final stretch of the 103rd Congress gives new meaning to the term gridlock.
In early 1993, Democrats and Republicans agreed that the time had come for an overhaul of telecommunications law. Much of the industry - from the largest telephone companies to the smallest cable providers - was also clamoring for an overhaul. Washington had a historic opportunity to prepare for a revolution that would fundamentally alter the way Americans communicate and receive information. But as so often happens here in the gridlock capital, the devil was in the details.Telecommunications experts have long foreseen a day when consumers can receive all their electronic communications through any one of four media: the telephone wire, the electric utility wire, the cable wire or satellites. But under the current laws, almost nobody but the Baby Bells is allowed to carry local telephone service. Conversely, the Baby Bells are forbidden to deliver cable television, while municipalities have given the cable companies incredible monopolies that jack up the price of service while offering consumers no other choices.
Two separate bills designed to lift these barriers passed the House in June with overwhelming bipartisan support. Two months later, the key Senate committee - Commerce, Science and Transportation - passed a related measure that also had bipartisan support. Although the bills differed, it seemed a sure bet at the time that a compromise bill would pass by the end of the year. But three months later, a group of obstructionist Republicans bent on political gain, and three greedy regional telephone companies, managed to kill any chance for a vote this year.
This was the kind of law, though highly technical in its language and provisions, that would have had a direct impact on the pocketbooks of millions of consumers.
The failure to compromise means domestic communications firms are now more likely to look for foreign partners - instead of American firms - for the superior products America could have been producing.
In 1982, the Justice Department wrapped up an eight-year antitrust suit against AT&T with a "consent decree" that ended AT&T's monopoly on local telephone service, leaving it to compete primarily as a long-distance company. Local telephone service was turned over to the seven regional "Baby Bells," which were given a telephone monopoly in their zones but were barred from selling long-distance service. The companies were also prohibited from manufacturing telephone equipment.
Most companies were happy with this deal until emerging technologies began to revolutionize the industry a few years ago. Suddenly, global pressure was forcing American companies to compete in a new world, where telephone technology was evolving exponentially. It presented a golden opportunity for American business, as U.S. companies have traditionally been leaders in emerging technologies.
The challenge was to make sure that Asian and European firms didn't take the new technology and begin to mass-market it at lower prices, which has happened in the past.
Only Congress can break down the restrictive barriers between technologies that have been largely intact since the days of FDR. Mergers have now been put on hold; expansion plans have been put on ice. And the interactive information age we've been promised for so long has been left on hold for at least one more year.