Baby Bells

Someone built a speed bump in the middle of the information superhighway.It's not clear who the culprit was, but there are plenty of candidates. The effort to bring federal regulation of the rapidly transforming telecommunications industry has been slowed. So, inevitably, will innovation in bringing the fruits of the electronic revolution to the homes of U.S. consumers.A bill to revise the 60-year-old federal communications law was ,, one of the most thoroughly studied and heavily lobbied measures in this Congress.

After weeks of intense lobbying, the Senate Commerce Committee appears to have broken a logjam over national telecommunications policy. But there are plenty of other snags before Congress succeeds in revising the 60-year-old law controlling electronic communication and a decade-old anti-trust decree restricting telephone operations.Vast technological changes have rendered these regulations obsolete. But with billions of dollars of revenue at stake, the various arms of the telecommunications industry have waged a massive struggle to invade each others' turf while protecting their own from competition as long as possible.

WASHINGTON -- A coalition of long-distance companies including AT&T, Sprint and MCI vowed yesterday to fight the four Bell operating companies that are trying to enter the long-distance and telecommunications manufacturing arena."

The race to create a nationwide network for wireless communications accelerated yesterday as Bell Atlantic Corp. and its Northeastern counterpart, Nynex Corp., announced plans to merge their cellular businesses into a super-regional giant with a ravenous appetite for new acquisitions.The cellular network the companies propose will sprawl down the Eastern Seaboard from Maine to South Carolina, with a portion of New Mexico and Arizona.It's a huge territory, but nowhere near as big as the ambitions of the deal's architects.

What a difference a decade makes.When American Telephone & Telegraph was broken up, each day I'd respond to dozens of shareholders who'd buttonhole me to ask which of the regional Bells to keep and which to sell.I'd point out the individual nature of each of the seven regionals, such as the size of its particular customer base. Then I'd add that a conservative investor would do fine no matter which ones he kept.Fortunately, that's just how it turned out. But while baby Bells were created equal, their individual strategies today are unique.

Here are answers from members of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants to readers' tax questions. The Sun will publish answers through April 15.Q: While an employee of C&P Telephone, I became eligible, in 1975, to buy AT&T stock at a purchase price about 85 percent of the market value. The purchases continued until Jan. 1, 1984, when AT&T was broken up. At that time I was issued stock in the seven "Baby Bells," which I still hold. During 1993, I sold 156 shares in US West, receiving $7,400.

NEW YORK -- In what amounted to a declaration of war on the nation's local telephone companies, MCI Communications Corp. said yesterday that it is building a $20 billion telecommunications network that will allow consumers to choose their local phone company just as they now choose their long-distance carrier.Drawing a parallel with MCI's successful battle a decade ago to introduce competition for long-distance telephone calls, which used to be monopolized by AT&T, MCI officials said the "Baby Bells" would find their local monopolies challenged over the coming years.

Ten years after the breakup of the nation's telephone monopoly, Ruth Taylor still mourns the demise of Ma Bell."AT&T was the only thing that worked perfectly and the government broke it up," says the 79-year-old Towson widow. "It is a shame; it was the only thing that was perfect in this world."But Robert Allen, chairman and chief executive of American Telephone & Telegraph Co., has long since put away the black crepe. To him, the Jan. 1, 1984, dismembering of AT&T has been a boon for his company and his country.

A long-standing dispute between the nation's newspaper companies and the seven "Baby Bells" over the role of the regional telephone companies is apparently close to resolution, industry representatives said yesterday.An agreement between the two industries, which could come as early as next week, would remove a key obstacle to congressional attempts to rewrite the 60-year-old law governing U.S. telecommunications."We may be able to do a deal very shortly," said Aubrey Sarvis, vice president of federal relations for Bell Atlantic Corp.