FCC Vows Swift Implementation of Telecom Law

The top communications industry regulator vowed Monday to have the new telecommunications law in place ahead of schedule, as regulators geared up to oversee huge changes in the phone, cable TV and broadcast industries.

Despite budget cuts, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt also promised that other FCC work will not suffer as a result of the new chores generated by the bill, which was signed into law last week by President Clinton.

“We don’t want to meet the deadlines in the act, we want to beat them,” Hundt told a news conference. “I don’t want to slow down anything.”

But others warned that some work may have to go on the back burner. “It’s inevitable that some things are going to slide,” said Regina Keeney, head of the FCC common carrier bureau that will oversee some of the most important parts of the new law.

The FCC is in charge of implementing much of the historic telecom bill, which shatters 60-year-old barriers and lets the phone, cable TV and broadcast industries invade one another’s turf.

The FCC must issue about 80 new rules, many of them within the next six months. The agency is liable to be sued by groups and companies that aren’t pleased with the rules. “We’re likely to be challenged on everything we do,” Keeney said.

Among the most important rules are those that will govern how the regional Bell phone companies get into the $70-billion long-distance business. The “checklist” for entry is due in six months.

The FCC must decide which industries foot the huge tab for ensuring that everyone who wants phone service actually receives it--a concept known as “universal service.” That rule is due within 15 months.

The agency must also oversee the introduction of a computer chip into television sets that will allow parents to block out shows they consider too violent or obscene. The deadline for the V-chip provision is at least two years away.

The FCC, with just under 2,000 employees, has its work cut out. Congress has sliced the agency’s budget more than 5%, to $176 million from $186 million in fiscal 1995.