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                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 1111

                          Monday, January 16, 1995

Today's Topics:


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9026 VP Gore's Full Text of Remarks Given at Telecom Summit Jan. 9 Bill, (fwd)


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Subject: 9026 VP Gore's Full Text of Remarks Given at Telecom Summit Jan. 9 Bill
, (fwd)
From: senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov (Mark J. Senk WB3CAI)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
 Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 07:54:56 -0600
 From: Mark J. Senk WB3CAI <senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov>
 To: Multiple recipients of list <uaccess_l@trace.wisc.edu>
 Subject: 9026 VP Gore's Full Text of Remarks Given at Telecom Summit Jan. 9 (fw
d)

I think this might be of some interest to this list.  I think it is great
to have access to this and an increasing amount of other government
information.


Mark Senk       (412) 892-6513  senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov
U.S. Bureau of Mines
Pittsburgh, PA  15236


---------- Forwarded message ----------
 Date: Fri, 13 Jan 95 04:57:53 -0800
 From:more@newsmaster.tgc.com
 To: senkmj@ptbma.usbm.gov
 Subject: 9026 VP Gore's Full Text of Remarks Given at Telecom Summit Jan. 9

VP Gore's Full Text of Remarks Given at Telecom Summit             Jan. 9
SUPERHIGHWAY REPORT                                                HPCwire
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  All of us here today know we are in the midst of an Information Revolution.
Last year when I visited students at the Monta Vista High School in
California, they showed me how to use their computer network to retrieve a
speech I had made one day earlier about the Information Superhighway
delivered at UCLA. Then they showed me how to retrieve a pamphlet written
years earlier -- "Common Sense" written by Thomas Paine. Paine used the
information infrastructure of his day in the service of a different kind of
revolution -- the fruits of which we enjoy today.

  Paine wasn't re-inventing government, of course. He and his contemporaries
were inventing a representative democratic government for the first time in
history.

  Yet Paine's insistence on the test of common sense is as important in this
information revolution as it was to our American revolution two centuries
ago.

  How can we best serve the cause of liberty and enterprise in cyberspace?
By working to reach a revolutionary goal through common sense means.

  A time comes in any revolution when expectations are very high but
accomplishments are not yet concrete. It is at such a time that we must
re-dedicate ourselves to the fundamental purpose of our efforts, measure how
far we have come, and consider how best to accomplish the revolutionary
enterprise.

  That is the place we occupy today as we take stock of the efforts to
develop the National Information Infrastructure and, more broadly, the Global
Information Infrastructure.

  Last October, I announced that we would hold this summit in order to ensure
that we remain connected to you -- the people who daily represent the public
in exploring the details, opportunities and impacts of the emerging
information superhighway.

  Of course, this is far from the first time this Administration has reached
out to state and local officials. Indeed, ever since I began working to
create a national information superhighway some 18 years ago, I have been
working closely with many of you here today and your colleagues.

  We share a common purpose, a purpose President Clinton and I outlined over
two years ago when we described our essential vision of the coming American
information marketplace. We seek open and free competition in which any
company is free to offer any information good or service to any customer.

  Why is that important? Very simply. Because competition lowers prices,
increases choices, improves quality and creates jobs. Competition is the key.
Competition in the information marketplace will provide Americans lower
prices for their telephone, cable and information goods and services and give
them more and better choices in the information and programming available to
them. Greater competition will unleash consumer demand for the new
information services and products that will educate, entertain and empower
our people. And that will lead to new, higher-paying jobs and an economy
better prepared for the challenges of the 21st century.

  How do we move toward that goal? By implementing five simple principles,
principles that the Administration has promoted aggressively for the past two
years. These principles were embraced by the International Telecommunications
Union in Buenos Aires last March. They were the framework for discussions at
both the Asian Pacific Economic Conference and Hemispheric Summits. Also they
will be the focus of the upcoming G-7 Ministerial Conference on the
Information Society in Brussels in late February.

  You know what those principles are. I've recited this list so often I feel
as if I'm reading the Miranda rights of the information superhighway. They
are competition, universal service, private investment, open access, and
flexible governmental action.

  Today, I am very pleased to announce that our Administration and a number
of groups representing state and local officials are jointly issuing a
"Statement of Policy Objectives" that address issues of mutual interest
concerning the future of advanced telecommunications and the role of each
level of government in building that future. This statement of policy
objectives is a major step toward consensus on how to build the information
superhighway. By issuing this statement, all of you gathered here today make
a clear statement of your -- and our -- vision of the path toward
telecommunications reform and the development of the NII. By endorsing this
statement we each:

  o   Recognize the paramount importance of private investment to build the
      NII;

  o   Show our support for public policies to promote competition as the best
      stimulus for innovation and efficiency;

  o   Confirm the need for open access to public switched networks for
      program providers;

  o   Re-affirm the importance of universal service in our telecommunications
      system;

  o   Recognize the necessity of keeping regulations agile enough to match
      the pace of technological and market changes; and

  o   Assert the importance of government action to protect consumers from
      raids on their pocketbooks and their privacy.

  I fully agree with the statement's recognition of the fact that:

   "The regulatory framework needed to manage the transition from a system
   of regulated monopolies to competition should utilize the expertise and
   experience that has been developed at each level of government."

  You have developed expertise and experience in promoting competition while
protecting consumers, preventing discrimination among providers or users,
ensuring universal service for all Americans. And we intend to draw upon that
enormous expertise in the months ahead.

  Again, competition is the key. In the long distance market, in the
telephone equipment industry and elsewhere in the computer industry, we have
seen the benefits of real competition often made possible by intelligent
government policy.

  When monopolies such as the original AT&T or the local cable company
deprived the consumers of the benefits of competition, government has acted
as a counterweight to protect consumers and give potential competitors a fair
chance. Since the break-up of AT&T eleven years ago, the use of long distance
is up and prices are down more than 60 percent in real terms.

  When competition came to the telephone equipment business, consumers
discovered that they could buy a telephone of their choice for less than $25
instead of renting one for $60 a year.

  We protected consumers in the Cable Act of 1992 by regulating prices and
ensuring high-quality services only where no effective competition existed.
According to the FCC, the 1992 cable law has potentially saved consumers $3
billion.

  The free and competitive market for computers has brought previously
unimaginable technological capacity to our offices and our homes. Forty years
ago it was predicted that the worldwide market for computers would be ten to
fifteen machines. In 1980 there were, in essence, no personal computers in
existence. But in less than a decade, PC prices have dropped sharply while
computing power has accelerated dynamically -- virtually doubling every
eighteen months. In the last quarter of 1994 Americans bought over 5.8
million personal computers.

  At the federal, state and local levels, we must continue to find new ways
to promote competition and innovation.

  We must spur private investment. The current auctions of PCS spectrum,
proposed by President Clinton in 1993, are opening the door to new wireless
technologies while raising billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury. The
result for consumers will be lower prices for wireless communication.

  Also, it will mean new wireless services, new jobs and more efficient, more
competitive workers: office workers will be able to work from their computers
anywhere and still be connected to their homes or offices; truck drivers
will be able to get instant information on delivery requirements; and police
officers will be able to get mug shots and police reports on a computer
terminal located in their patrol car.

  In addition, we can create the conditions for real competition by ensuring
program providers nondiscriminatory access to information conduits and
networks. We have heard much in recent months about the strong beginnings of
Direct Broadcast Satellite services -- bringing up to 150 channels into every
home anywhere in the country; allowing customers to watch every NFL game and
hundreds of basketball games, and already serving 300,000 households across
the nation.

  I've been a supporter of satellite services for a long time. Yet today's
competitive successes did not arise by happenstance or merely by the workings
of an invisible hand.

  The program access provisions of the Cable Act of 1992 guaranteed that
direct satellite services would have programming to provide -- a sound
example of common sense governmental action that helps to create the
conditions for real competition. There was a problem because of distortions
in the marketplace. The federal government fixed that problem by opening up
the market to competition.

  And where competition can come to the marketplace and put government out
of business, it is critically important that it does so. President Clinton
and I have worked hard to reinvent the federal government. Ninety-three
percent of the reinventing government proposals are in some stage of
implementation. In December, the President announced the major restructuring
of five federal agencies. And right now we have underway a comprehensive
review in a second round of reinventing government.

  We have initiated a regulatory reform effort that will match good
intentions with good regulations by encouraging citizen participation,
simplifying regulatory processes, and using information technology everywhere
we can to meet our national goals of better customer service, innovation, and
measurable results.

  I encourage you to do the same -- to look hard at the tasks you perform,
to decide which are necessary and which have become superfluous -- to drive
your own agencies to work faster, better and smarter.

  The issuance of our Joint Statement today comes at a critical -- and
critically appropriate -- time as Congress begins debate over new
telecommunications legislation, as state and local governments are building
increasing momentum to open markets, and as nations around the world look to
the United States for leadership. The framework we issue today -- the fact
that we at the federal and state levels can agree on the guideposts for the
path to reform -- will send a clear signal that our resolve for revolutionary
change is greater than ever before.

  Last year, unfortunately, telecommunications reform legislation fell by the
wayside in the waning days of the Congress as the many varied participants
responded more to their fears than to their hopes.

  That's not a surprise. Any revolutionary era means, by definition, that
great change is underway -- change that mixes legitimate concern about the
shifting nature of competitive advantage with unrealistic fears of the
unknown.

  Each industry is trying to enter new markets while keeping competitors out
of its own old market. The motto seems to be, "What's mine is mine -- what's
yours is negotiable." We have to break this impasse if we are going to create
a vibrant, competitive information marketplace. Let me give you some
examples.

  The regional phone companies legitimately want to use their expertise to
compete in other markets. But they fear that before they can do so, they will
become "hollow monopolies" -- the purveyors of local telephone services,
only to customers that others do not wish to serve.

  As a result of those fears, most local phone companies are trying to delay
the inevitable -- genuine competition for local telephone services. They are
viewed as delaying the game when they could be partners in negotiating the
rules of the game.

  Long distance companies -- large and small -- want to ensure that their
businesses are primarily dependent on a local telephone monopolist to reach
their customers and vice versa; and they especially do not want to be
dependent on a monopolist who is permitted to compete with them in their
markets at the same time that they and local customers have no real choices
for local service.

  So they are proposing a level of detail difficult to achieve in federal
legislation before they are willing to support change. They, in effect, are
demanding that the footnotes to the rule book be written before the game can
begin.

  Cable companies, too, want to offer new services, like local telephony. But
they, too, fear that other competitors will use past regulatory advantage --
or the capital gained from past monopoly status -- to overwhelm them.

  Because of this fear, they are using the regulatory process and legal
challenges to delay local telephone company entry into the cable market. Some
of them would like to bring the game to a halt before it even starts.

  Information service providers are concerned that telephone companies and
cable companies will abuse their control of both content and conduit. They
will benefit from the build out of high-speed networks, but fear being left
out of the game altogether and being denied access to American households.

  And consumers themselves have fears; as workers and citizens, they don't
want to be left out. The Joint Statement that we issue today accurately
describes advanced telecommunication services as a potential tool that can
empower Americans, that can enhance economic opportunity and improve the
delivery of public services. But a tool can be used only by those who hold
it in their hands.

  Consumers want to ensure that they are not disadvantaged by the change that
does come to them -- that they do not find the cost of being in the game
rising constantly with little benefit to justify it and no increase in the
quality of play.

  As you know, because you deal with these issues every day, there is some
truth and some exaggeration in each of these fears -- particularly the fears
expressed by private economic interests. We need to listen carefully to the
voices of industry, but at the end of the day we must ensure that the
marketplace favors real competition which is after all never without risk --
not only the desires or well-being of a particular competitor.

  How do we reconcile all these fears? Not by making small changes to the
present regulatory system. Nor by discounting the legitimate concerns of
market players because of the validity of these concerns. Nor by continuing
to protect monopolies and artificially subdividing the telecommunications
marketplace.

  We can deal with all the fears of all the different players only by having
the courage to throw out the regulated monopoly model that we've used for
more than 60 years and instead create a truly competitive marketplace where
regulation is replaced by competition on a level playing field.

  We propose that the Administration work with the Congress, the industry,
the public interest community and all of you gathered here today to decide
in a timely manner the rules necessary for a fair game and let the play
begin. No team should be allowed to bring in ringers or begin with unfair
advantages gained from previous monopolistic positions and practices and no
team should be allowed to unduly slow or complicate play.

  But the game should not begin on some arbitrary date without rules at all
on the mistaken assumption that a calendar can replace a rule book. Too many
people and businesses have too much at stake to be subject to the vagaries
of trying to play now and figure out the rules later.

  In this new competitive world, interconnection rules will ensure that new
network service providers -- including utilities and cable companies that
wish to offer switched digital services -- can compete fairly with incumbent
phone companies. The regional phone companies can compete on even terms with
inter-exchange companies in both local and long- distance markets. Thousands
of information service providers and programmers will be able to compete
because we will work with the states to ensure they all have non-
discriminatory access to regulated networks.

  And new, more effective universal service provisions will ensure that all
consumers will be able to enjoy the lower prices and greater choices
competition will make possible.

  We can create such a world -- indeed, we must -- in order to meet the needs
and eliminate the fears of consumers.

  But we will not have full and open competition if private interests use
regulatory and legislative proceedings as tools for short-term competitive
advantage rather than a mechanism for the long-term public good. Regulatory
delay must never be permitted to become a tactic of private, competitive
advantage.

  So I hope that in your discussions today you will begin to cut through the
stalemate by carefully unbundling the real from the imaginary.

  I suggest a straightforward approach. Competition is always better than
monopoly. But monopoly power must never be confused with competition. Two
enemies of competition are monopoly power and unwise government regulation.

  We must remember, after all, that the goal we seek is real competition. Not
the illusion of competition; not the distant prospect of competition. Because
only real competition can meet the test that consumers rightly demand -- that
prices be lower; quality higher; and choice, greater. That's just common
sense.

  That is why, for example, we have already said that we cannot support a
proposal to fully deregulate the local telephone exchanges upon the mere
prospect that some theoretical competitor might be able to provide some
services to some hypothetical customer. That is an allusion of competition.
It's not competition. Competition must be real. But by the same token, we
must not use the rationale of scarcity to limit competition in a time of
technological abundance.

  Where real competition is possible, we must ready the stage for its
appearance.

  And where it is real, we must be prepared to re-examine past regulatory
mechanisms. For example, current cable legislation established rate
regulation in monopoly markets. But some are suggesting that cable markets
are changing faster than anticipated. If the arrival of direct broadcast
satellite and video dial tone eliminates the need for rate regulation, so
much the better. I have no interest in seeing regulatory mechanisms
perpetuated one instant longer than necessary. I'm sure everyone feels that
way.

  We will listen with an open mind. We will ask what competition exists, for
what markets and for what services. We will ask what can be done to speed up
competition even more. We consider how best to reach our essential goal of
protecting consumers -- and liberating consumer demand.

  It is to learn from and listen to you that I called this summit today. And
it is why I encourage you to join the issues today with a common vision and
common goals.

  We all look forward to working with the leaders of the 104th Congress. We
are already building a bipartisan coalition for reform. We are eager to work
with Leader Dole and Speaker Gingrich, Senators Pressler and Hollings, and
other Senators working in this field; and with Congressmen Bliley and
Dingell, Fields and Markey. As last year's overwhelming vote in the House of
Representatives demonstrated, the case for change transcends political
boundaries.

  That signal is amplified by your efforts that are already underway.
Represented here are state and local governments that are introducing
competition to markets that were previously the domain of monopoly providers;
that are introducing new models of telemedicine to reduce costs and improve
health care delivery; and that are linking their schools, libraries and
citizens to the Information superhighway -- a goal of particular importance
to us.

  You have been the innovators -- you have had to be, in order to keep pace
with technology. While much attention has been focused on the federal
government, many of you have completely rewritten your states'
telecommunications rule books. You've introduced competition into the
marketplace and found ways to promote new services, better quality, and lower
prices all at the same time. There are many inspiring examples. I salute you
on the work you've done and are doing.

  Not just communities but whole nations will be helped by the coming of the
information revolution. Because open markets are just as critical around the
world as they are in the United States.

  Free market access will provide critical support for the economic
development of other nations, whose businesses and workers need access to
advanced technologies if they are to remain -- or to become -- competitive
in a global economy.

  And open markets will allow people around the world to have access to and
choose from the best in educational, entertainment and creative products such
as films, sound recordings, computer software and books.

  When nations close markets they close minds and opportunities as well. In
Europe, quotas on television limit U.S. programming; in Canada, my home
state's favorite cable channel has been forced off the air; in Australia,
preferences are provided to domestic films, and in Columbia a new law just
passed to set day-time quotas for television.

  The United States must fight for open markets so that our products can be
sold worldwide. We must fight for open markets because the principle of free
expression of ideas is at stake. We must fight for open markets to protect
the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the entertainment and content industry.
And we will do so -- including at the upcoming G-7 ministerial conference in
Brussels next month.

  Still, there are challenges that remain in translating our purpose and our
objectives into action.

  The words of Alexis de Toqueville, written in 1835, demonstrates that the
case for change transcends boundaries of time as well ... A keen observer of
American democracy, de Toqueville wrote:

   I think that it is an arduous undertaking to excite the enthusiasm of a
   democratic nation for any theory that does not have a visible, direct, and
   immediate bearing on the occupations of their daily lives ... For it is
   enthusiasm which makes men's [and women's] minds leap off the beaten track
   and brings about great intellectual, as well as political, revolution.

  We have seen -- and I have described today -- the evidence of the
information revolution that is already upon us. Its historical genesis is
inseparable from our quest for freedom -- from the printing press that Thomas
Paine used to print "Common Sense" to the explosion of talk radio and the
growth of the Internet. Its prospect is for the pursuit of happiness, from
jobs and education and health care to the simpler pleasure of watching
football on a Sunday afternoon. Its time has come.

  Almost exactly a year ago today, I told industry leaders that we were
meeting on common ground, not to predict the future, but to make firm the
arrangements for its arrival. Today, with you, we meet again on common
ground, again to make firm the arrangements that will allow the information
revolution to have an even more visible, direct and immediate impact on the
lives of all Americans.

  The President, Secretary Brown and I, and all the members of this
Administration here today, look forward to working together with you.



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                 End of Issue # 1111 of the Blind News Digest

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