![]() The question I have been asked to address today is what are the public policy issues that are raised by the spread of computer and video based interactivity? There are many and I certainly do not feel competent to address them all. By the time the FCC completes its auction, investors are likely to have plunked down billions of dollars for spectrum rights that will enable providers to deliver these services to the public. These are not just pie-in-the-sky predictions. Once they are fully built out, fiber optic highways and satellites will do for video what copper wire did for voice: allow individuals to interact with others rather than just to passively receive information or entertainment. The future promises even more video interactivity. Millions of Americans are now also using on-line information services and the Internet to communicate with each other, with a growing number of libraries and other data bases, and with people around the world. In our homes, the telecommunications revolution has already dramatically lowered long-distance telephone rates, while bringing dozens of video channels to our television sets. Some of you may already feel the same about videoconferencing, which may be standard practice in relatively few companies now but surely will be common throughout the economy in just a few short years. I find it difficult to remember life without fax machines or e-mail, both of which have dramatically speeded up communications on the job. Meanwhile, advances in telecommunications have been transforming our daily lives. Assuming the Administration's telecommunications reform proposals are enacted by the next Congress -a subject I will discuss at the end of this speech - this share could double over the following decade. According to the Council of Economic Advisers, firms engaged in the information services sector of our economy - including computers, software, telecommunications services and equipment - accounted for nine percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product in 1993. ![]() Within the United States, telecommunications products and services are powering economic growth. Ultimately, political freedom itself spilled over from West to East. ![]() The former communist countries could not control the flow of information about life in the West that personal computers and television made possible. But I know from my job and from casual reading in my spare time (what little of it there is) that the United States - and indeed the world - is in the midst of a telecommunications revolution that will have profound consequences for every aspect of our lives.Īt the global level, telecommunications helped end the Cold War. I am a telecommunications neophyte, having only recently learned how to use the Internet. Department of Justice Before the The National Academy of Engineering Washington, D. LITAN Deputy Assistant Attorney General Antitrust Division U.S. ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT AND THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS REVOLUTION: FRIENDS, NOT ENEMIES ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |