Ten Years Ago... A Look at Competition in Phone & Cable Industries

Year of Intense Activity Looms for Phone Industry, Experts Say
[SOURCE: New York Times 1/2/1997, AUTHOR: Mark Landler]
After a year of historic legislation, heated litigation and no fewer than four multibillion-dollar mergers, even the most confident were reluctant to venture an opinion about what changes 1997 would bring to the roiling telecommunications industry. With deregulation the law of the land, most experts believed that the telephone business could only become more competitive in '97. The tougher economic realities that competition might bring also suggested that more phone companies would pursue mergers or takeovers. The onset of competition would be messy, they warned, with the long-distance and local carriers haggling over every nuance of the rules of engagement. And those detours into court would further delay the free-market free-for-all that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was meant to uncork.
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0910FD3C5D0C71...
(requires TimesSelect subscription)

One Challenger to Cable TV Fades as Another Appears Via Satellite
[SOURCE: New York Times 1/2/1997, AUTHOR: Geraldine Fabrikant]
In 1997, the cable television industry was no longer threatened by the telephone business; instead, the direct-to-home satellite industry was pressuring the cable industry to improve technology and customer service. A flurry of mergers was waning. Experts believed that the industry could outperform the telephone companies, if it deploys the "new weapons" of customer service and technology.
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F1061EFE34540C71...
(requires TimesSelect subscription)