Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Lawmakers January 5, 1984 - Most material from previous report on telephone deregulation - Ma Bell breakup. See also master 11225 for original material aired Nov 10, 1983
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Paul Duke introduces report on telephone rates, telecommunications and the breakup of Ma Bell.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Bob Hardiman, C&P Telephone Company, It s not going to be business as usual. There are going to be some changes and the customers are going to have to be dealing with three different telephone companies, if you will.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Exterior of C&P Telephone Company building.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
People buying telephone in a phone store.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Phone lines attaching to houses. Telephone wires pan to house.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Representative Tim Wirth (D - Colorado) As we move into an information economy, where it is increasingly important that we re in touch with all parts of the economy, that means that some people who have less money are just priced right out of the ability to participate in this society. And that s wrong.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
DO NOT USE Clip of a lobbying ad, a woman walks through a telephone switch room, talking about upcoming changes in phone service.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
DO NOT USE AT&T newspaper ad urging approval of access fees.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Pic Wagner, AT&T, We ve spent over a couple of million dollars on it, which considering the number of people we had to reach, is a very modest figure.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Representative Tim Wirth (D - Colorado), At stake here are billions of dollars that are going to transfer from rate payers, senior citizens, individuals on fixed incomes to AT&T. And if AT&T wins, there is a huge windfall for AT&T.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Pic Wagner, AT&T, That s an outrageous lie. AT&T shareowners don t pay the cost or get the benefits of any of the access charges or any of the changes in revenues.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Representative John Dingell (D - Michigan) in debate in House, Why is AT&T so opposed to this legislation? Because AT&T wants to reach out and touch somebody. They want to reach out and touch everybody. They want to reach out and touch them in their wallet.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Representative Ed Markey (D - Massachusetts) in debate in well of House, using money and shoeboxes labeled AT&T, Long-Distance Revenues and Consumers. So why are we getting into this mess? Why is Congress butting into a business that we've always left to the FCC for so many years and we haven t in fact taken any role whatsoever? Because this ought to be the one instance, that as corny as it may sound, that the buck stops here.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Representative Matthew Rinaldo (R - New Jersey) arguing about the telephone legislation. We don t have all the facts. We don t have any actual experience. We don t know what s going to happen. The policy of the sponsors of this legislation is short-sighted. But I can assure you that no one will get up and deny on either side that there aren t going to be telephone rate increases.
Lawmakers January 05, 1984
Paul Duke, Cokie Roberts, and Norman Ornstein in studio discuss effort to ban access fee by local telephone companies for long distance lines was approved by House, uncertain fate in Senate. Senators might be forced by election year concerns to do something. The issue is related to the Democrats theme of "fairness". Republicans don't want to look like they favor the corporate fat cats. Also, the parties don't want to cross AT&T in a year when they are going to need phones for campaigning and conventions. Complicated issue.