Peace Talks p.

By: George Garneau

Newspaper Association of America and the regional Bell operating companies attempting to come up with 'safeguard' legislation that will be palatable to both sides
THE LION AND lamb aren't lying down together, but representatives of newspapers and regional telephone companies have been discussing an armistice that could be announced "within weeks at the most," the newspaper representative said.
The sides have made "considerable progress" over six months in talks that center on "safeguards that could form the basis for comprehensive legislation in the House," said Newspaper Association of America vice president and chief lobbyist John Sturm, who represents newspapers in the negotiations.
Sturm declined to say who represented the regional Bell operating companies or to discuss the substance of the talks. But he said that results, if any, would be forthcoming shortly in the form of language for a compromise telecommunications bill.
Sturm's disclosure, at the Newspaper Association of America's Nexpo exhibition and conference in New Orleans, came as newspapers around the country, notably including Cox Enterprises' Atlanta Journal-Constitution, are cutting their own deals with phone companies.
Since U.S. District Judge Harold Greene lifted a restriction in 1991, the RBOCs have been free to generate information, rather than just carry it for others. That means they may market such products as electronic yellow pages and classified ads. But the development of such services has been slowed by the lack of a national telecommunications policy, and the threat of legislation effectively banning the Bells from information services.
NAA, in an effort to guard newspapers' lucrative classified advertising, and other categories, has been fighting in Congress to ban RBOCs as information providers as long as they control the lines of communication.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Jack Brooks (D.-Texas) died last year after proceeding out of committee. It would have barred RBOCs from information services as long as the phone companies held monopoly control over local phone service ? what has come to be known as an "entry test."
The discussion of "safeguards" represents a tacit acceptance that newspapers may not be able to garner enough support for a law blocking phone companies entirely from becoming information suppliers. Instead, the issue seems to have shifted to how to prevent RBOCs from using their monopoly power against other information suppliers.
One safeguard, included in an agreement last March between the New Jersey Press Association and New Jersey Bell, is intended to prevent "cross subsidization" ? using profits from N.J. Bell's regulated local phone monopoly to subsidize new information services, a practice newspapers and consumer groups say is unfair to phone customers and to competing information providers.
The Jersey agreement allows state regulators to oversee the finances of a separately operated Bell subsidiary. The deal came about after the state freed N.J. Bell to provide electronic information services and to spend $1.5 billion wiring the state with optical fiber.
Last year NAA called the New Jersey arrangement "a serious step forward in addressing the risk of anti-competitive conduct by the Bell companies" but said it failed to address major issues.
Another protection that has been discussed is designed to prevent phone companies from developing databases about people who call into competing phone services.
As they meet quietly, newspapers and RBOCs continue their high-profile battle over national telecommunications policy. It includes expensive lobbying and advertising in which RBOCs blame newspapers for blocking advanced educational and scientific communications, and newspapers charge that RBOCs will use their monopoly control of the information pipeline to snuff out competing information providers.
"People in Congress would much rather have both sides work this out than for them to take sides, and it may well be that an accord of this kind is what's necessary to get a national telecommunications policy," said Tonda Rush, president of the National Newspaper Association, which represents smaller newspapers and is not involved in the negotiations.
NNA is opposing a Senate telecommunications bill, which NAA is endorsing, because it does not provide strong enough guarantees that local information providers will get the access and price equality of other providers, Rush said.
Mickey McGuire, executive vice president-governmental affairs of BellSouth Corp. and designated spokesman for the RBOCs, did not return phone calls seeking comment.