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Press Release June 24, 1998 |
Contact: 202/462-6262 |
WASHINGTON – Following is the reaction of Gene Kimmelman, Co-Director of the DC office of Consumers Union to the announcement that AT&T intends to merge with TCI:
"Consumers Union is hopeful that this merger will offer consumers choice and lower prices for local phone services. However, if there is inadequate public oversight of this merger, we run the risk that AT&T will become a price-gouging cable monopoly with no interest in promoting local telephone competition.
"This is a key juncture in the road for the Telecommunications Act. Either this means that AT&T will actually be using the cable wire to try to deliver local phone service -- which would prove the ultimate success of the Telecommunications Act -- or it means the opposite: that it is really buying a cable monopoly and will milk it for all its worth.
"We’re going to be pressing antitrust officials and the regulators at the Federal Communications Commission to oversee this merger very carefully to make sure that the transaction does not allow AT&T to just take advantage of a cable monopoly and not move aggressively into local phone service. We will be asking the Justice Department and the FCC to block this deal if there are not real enforceable commitments to enhance phone competition and restrain cable prices.
"There’s potential here for consumers to benefit if AT&T uses this cable wire to deliver phone services. However, we remain somewhat skeptical this will occur because every effort to do it in the past has failed."
