AOL's Bottom Line
Caller ID Gains, Despite Limitation
U.S. Wants Public Interest Rules For New Digital TV Channels
Big Brother wants to manage the broadcast spectrum again
Clinton Panel to Explore Public Interest in Digital TV
One year after the Telecommunications Act became law --- (ad)
Ameritech Wins Clearance by Michigan to Sell Long-Distance Services
in State
Internet Domain: Cyberspace Expands With New Addresses
One year after the Telecommunications Act became law --- (ad)
New System for Net Addresses Proposed
*********************************************
Title: AOL's Bottom Line
Author: Robert Stein
Issue: AOL
Description: This oped by a former editor of McCalls and former chairman
of the American Society of Magazine Editors argues that AOL's plight of
lowering rates and then being unable to fully respond to the demand
parallels the challenges faced by magazines in the 1970s. Magazines like
Look and Life kept lowering subscriptions prices to compete with TV for
advertising. Many of magazines gained record numbers of readers then went
under. The question AOL faces is, are advertisers willing to invest and
how can advertisers identify an audience? Also, how will users be able to
evaluate which information is valuable in the all you can eat world of the
Internet. Users may be suffering from what Lew Mumford refers to as,
"deprivation by surfeit."
Title: Caller ID Gains, Despite Limitation
Author: Andree Brooks
Issue: phones
Description: The number of phone subscribers using caller ID is growing.
Over 1 million customers signed up for the service between mid-1995 to
mid-1996 partly because of aggressive advertising campaigns by the phone
companies. Many regional companies, however, don't have the equipment to
support the service. If you don't like caller ID, you can have your line
remain anonymous on the caller ID screens (aka line blocking). If you
don't like people who have anonymous lines, you can block their calls to
your number. Fun for the whole family.
Title: U.S. Wants Public Interest Rules For New Digital TV Channels
Author: Mark Landler
Issue: ATV
Description: The vice president announced yesterday that the
administration wants to put new public interest obligations on broadcasters
in exchange for the extra channels they will receive for the transition to
digital television. Gore said that, "Digital technology will greatly
enhance the opportunities available to broadcasters. The public interest
obligations should be commensurate with these new opportunities." In the
administration's plan, broadcasters would receive the new licenses as
planned, "but in using these new licenses for one or more channels would be
held to a public interest standard at least as stringent as the one they
usually carry." FCC Chairman Hundt has spoken up for stronger public
interest requirements and would rather not give out the licenses until the
broadcasters make a clear commitment to public service programming. The
administration's plan does not go this far. Gore proposed that the
licenses be given out and then a panel of broadcasters, educators, and
others could recommend obligations.
Title: Big Brother wants to manage the broadcast spectrum again
Author: Peter Passell
Issue: FCC
Description: This article describes the tension between competing agendas
on how spectrum should be parceled out, auctions, who should manage the
spectrum, what competition can or can't accomplish, and how the FCC fits
into to it all.
Title: Clinton Panel to Explore Public Interest in Digital TV
Author: WSJ reporter
Issue: ATV
Description: The Clinton Administration will form a panel to recommend
what types of public interest obligations broadcasters should follow as
they move towards broad use of digital television. Though Vice President
Gore did not discuss what specific standards the panel will consider, it
will most likely evaluate free time for candidates, an idea popular with
FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.
Title: One year after the Telecommunications Act became law --- (ad)
Author: America's Local Phone Companies
Issue: Phone reg
Description: Full page ad arguing that local phone companies are doing
their part to serve the American public and to open to competition. Long
distance companies, on the other hand, only want to provide local service
to businesses and the wealthy and they want to do this without "paying
the real costs of using the local phone networks every one else depends
on." The ad encourages people to let the FCC know that the long distance
companies should not be let off the hook.
Title: Ameritech Wins Clearance by Michigan to Sell Long-Distance Services
in State
Author: Leslie Cauley
Issue: Phone reg
Description: A Michigan panel of regulators found that Ameritech met the
check list required by baby bells to enter the long distance market. While
this decision moves Ameritech one step closer to being the first baby bell
in the $80 billion long distance market, the FCC still needs to approve
Ameritech's entry application and decide that the company has fulfilled all
the items on the checklist before anything can happen.
Title: Internet Domain: Cyberspace Expands With New Addresses
Author: Rebecca Quick
Issue: WWW
Description: Overcrowding on the Internet has moved a group led by the
Internet Society, a self-appointed standard setting group for the Internet,
to create a set of new domain names so the Internet won't run out of
distinct address sites. Approximately 85,000 new site names are
registered each month. There are 900,000 names so far and about 90% end in
com. Along with com, edu, gov, org, and mil, we could have seven new names
including firm, store, info, web, arts, nom, rec. There may be great
confusion as organizations decide what names to use.
From the Washington Post (A20) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/)
Title: One year after the Telecommunications Act became law --- (ad)
Author: America's Local Phone Companies
Issue: Phone reg
Description: Same ad as described in WSJ clip
From the Washington Post (C3) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/)
Title: New System for Net Addresses Proposed
Author: David S. Hilzenrath
Issue: WWW
Description: In order to ease crowding and release the monopolistic hold
over domain names by Virginia-based Network Solutions, a group called the
International Ad Hoc Committee, spearheaded by the Internet Society, has
introduced seven new domain names and stated that 28 organizations
worldwide would be chosen by lottery to register the addresses with the new
suffixes. Since the Internet Society has no official power, whether this
plan works will
depend on whether the Internet community goes along with it.
*********