Word: tci
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...very scope of the legislation has brought forth armies of lobbyists to advance the interests of clients ranging from the seven Baby Bell phone companies to cable- TV behemoths like Time Warner and Tele Communications Inc. (TCI). This onslaught of special interests has led consumer advocates and other experts to warn that what began as a laudable attempt to promote competition could wind up benefitting media giants far more than their customers. "The people screwed are the consumers," declares Gary Arlen, a telecommunications consultant in Bethesda, Maryland. "Cable rates will rise in the short term before there's rate relief...
...cable-TV and local phone companies enter one another's business. Other firms, including long-distance carriers, could also provide local phone service. Result: one-stop shopping in which companies would offer packages of telephone and TV services directly to the home. With that in mind, cable firms TCI, Cox Enterprises and Comcast last year joined forces with Sprint to develop a nationwide network for delivering cable and telephone signals to the same customers...
...immediate offset." Already, dozens of firms known as "competitive access providers" deliver local voice-and-data transmission services to businesses, linking them to long-distance lines in competition with the Bells. Some of these newcomers have deep pockets. Teleport Communications Group, which operates in 37 markets, is owned by TCI and three other cable systems. "People are anxious for an alternative to the Bells," asserts Curt Hockemeier, a Teleport senior vice president. "It's going to be a wide-open fight." Declares James Crowe, chairman of MFS Communications, which is in 32 cities and plans to add 70 more: "Everyone...
...tension and slow progress, because they tend to unite friends and foes alike in potentially uncomfortable situations. Bell Atlantic and U S West are building separate electronic highways, for example, even as the two firms are allied in a project to provide wireless phone service. Time Warner and TCI are archrivals, yet they have teamed with Sega of America to form the Sega Channel, which could go out over the companies' superhighways. Entanglements like these have given rise to a new term: coopetition. Notes communications consultant Jeffrey Kagan: ``It can be very difficult to share secrets with a partner...
Some companies are quietly finding ways to link up all these appliances. Motorola created a new unit in January to build equipment that will bring online networks to home computers via TV cables. Motorola plans to test the system this year in a venture with TCI in suburban Chicago. (Comcast is experimenting with a similar system in Philadelphia, using equipment made by Zenith.) Apple, in conjunction with Texas Instruments, will market a tool it calls FireWire, designed to hook all such devices together so they can be operated from a single ``touchpad,'' or remote-control device...