FUTURE WATCH : Dating Game

There’s been much ado about the collapse of the $33-billion deal between the giant cable operator Tele-Communications Inc. and the Bell Atlantic Corp. telephone company. Together the two envisioned having a defining role in wiring America for the information revolution. But amid the finger-pointing and conjecturing after the agreement failed, let it be noted that the setback is simply a detour on the information superhighway.

Others continue in the mad scramble to privately develop the infrastructure and technology to bring state-of-the-art telecommunications into homes and offices. The TCI-Bell Atlantic merger plan (combined, the companies would have reached 40% of U.S. households) was the biggest and most ambitious of the putative alliances for the development of interactive services. Bell Atlantic has made it clear that even without TCI it will pursue plans to deliver home shopping, movies and other interactive television experiments.

The two companies blamed the souring of the deal on the regulatory environment. The Federal Communications Commission this week ordered cable operators to lower rates by 7%. That stands to cut into TCI’s cash flow, reducing the amount Bell Atlantic was willing to pay for it. So no deal. But even before the FCC order, terms of the highly complex deal were at issue, and negotiations were difficult because of the contrasting cultures of the two firms.

The two hit a pothole in the superhighway. But they emerged intact--just not together. Who will be next to try?