Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/reports/al.gore-telecom.summit

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Date: Wed, 11 Jan 95 09:42:41 CST
From: [e-mail] (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson))
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
To: telecom
Subject: Vice-President Gore Speaking at Telecom Summit


Bryan K. Douglas sent along the following transcription of Vice-President
Al Gore's remarks to the Telecom Summit meeting in Washington, DC on
January 9, 1995. This file will be made available for future reference
in the Telecom Archives.

PAT


  Date: Wed, 11 Jan 95 07:16:18 CST
  From: [e-mail] (Bryan K. Douglas)
  Subject: Al Gore at Telecom Summit


Pat,

The following may be an interesting addition to the archives.

Bryan Douglas
Alcatel Network Systems

  Title:1995-01-09 VP GORE 1/9 REMARKS AT TELECOMM SUMMIT
  Document-Date:Mon, 09 Jan 1995 14:53:00 -0400 (EDT)
  Content-Length: 25897


                            REMARKS OF
                      VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE
                        AS DELIVERED TO THE
                FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL TELECOMM SUMMIT
                         WASHINGTON, D.C.
                          JANUARY 9, 1995

       All of us here today know we are in the midst of an
   Information Revolution.  Last year, when I visited students
   at the Monta Vista High School in California, they showed me
   how to use their computer network to retrieve a speech I had
   made one day earlier about the Information Superhighway
   delivered at UCLA.  Then they showed me how to retrieve a
   pamphlet written years earlier  -- "Common Sense," written
   by Thomas Paine.  Paine used the information infrastructure
   of his day in the service of a different kind of revolution
   -- the fruits of which we enjoy today.

       Paine wasn't re-inventing government, of course.  He
   and his contemporaries were inventing a representative
   democratic government for the first time in history.

       But Paine's insistence on the test of common sense is
   as important in this information revolution as it was to our
   American revolution two centuries ago.

       How can we best serve the cause of liberty and
   enterprise in cyberspace?  By working to reach a
   revolutionary goal through common sense means.

       A time comes in any revolution when expectations are
   very high but accomplishments are not yet concrete.  It is
   at such a time that we must re-dedicate ourselves to the
   fundamental purpose of our efforts, measure how far we have
   come, and consider how best to accomplish the revolutionary
   enterprise.

       That is the place we occupy today as we take stock of
   the efforts to develop the National Information
   Infrastructure and, more broadly, the Global Information
   Infrastructure.

        Last October, I announced that we would hold this
   summit in order to ensure that we remain connected to you --
   the people who daily represent the public in exploring the
   details, opportunities and impacts of the emerging
   information superhighway.

       Of course, this is far from the first time this
   Administration has reached out to state and local officials.
   Indeed, ever since I began working to create a national
   information superhighway some 18 years ago, I have been
   working closely with many of you here today and your
   colleagues.

       We share a common purpose, a purpose President Clinton
   and I outlined over two years ago when we described our
   essential vision of the coming American information
   marketplace.  We seek open and free competition in which any
   company is free to offer any information good or service to
   any customer.

       Why is that important?  Very simply.  Because
   competition lowers prices, increases choices, improves
   quality and creates jobs.  Competition is the key.
   Competition in the information marketplace will provide
   Americans lower prices for their telephone, cable and
   information goods and services and give them more and better
   choices in the information and programming available to
   them.  Greater competition will unleash consumer demand for
   the new information services and products that will educate,
   entertain and empower our people.  And that will lead to
   new, higher-paying jobs and an economy better prepared for
   the challenges of the 21st century.

       How do we move toward that goal?  By implementing five
   simple principles, principles that the Administration has
   promoted aggressively for the past two years.  These
   principles were embraced by the International
   Telecommunications Union in Buenos Aires last March.  They
   were the framework for discussions at both the Asian Pacific
   Economic Conference and Hemispheric Summits.  Also they will
   be the focus of the upcoming G-7 Ministerial Conference on
   the Information Society in Brussels in late February.

       You know what those principles are.  I've recited this
   list so often I feel as if I'm reading the Miranda rights of
   the information superhighway.  They are competition,
   universal service, private investment, open access, and
   flexible governmental action.

       Today, I am very pleased to announce that our
   Administration and a number of groups representing state and
   local officials are jointly issuing a "Statement of Policy
   Objectives" that address issues of mutual interest
   concerning the future of advanced telecommunications and the
   role of each level of government in building that future.
   This statement of policy objectives is a major step toward
   consensus on how to build the information superhighway.
   By issuing this statement all of you gathered here today
   make a clear statement of your  -- and our -- vision of the
   path toward telecommunications reform and the development of
   the NII.  By endorsing this statement we each:

       ?    recognize the paramount importance of private
             investment to build the NII;

       ?    show our support for public policies to promote
             competition as the best stimulus for innovation
             and efficiency;

       ?    confirm the need for open access to public
             switched networks for program providers;

       ?    re-affirm the importance of universal service in
             our telecommunications system;

       ?    recognize the necessity of keeping regulations
             agile enough to match the pace of technological
             and market changes, and

       ?    assert the importance of government action to
             protect consumers from raids on their pocketbooks
             and their privacy.

       I fully agree with the statement's recognition of the
   fact that:

            "[t]he regulatory framework needed to manage the
   transition from a system of regulated monopolies to
   competition should utilize the expertise and experience that
   has been developed at each level of government."

       You have developed expertise and experience in
   promoting competition while protecting consumers, preventing
   discrimination among providers or users, ensuring universal
   service for all Americans.  And we intend to draw upon that
   enormous expertise in the months ahead.

       Again, competition is the key.  In the long distance
   market, in the telephone equipment industry and elsewhere,
   in the computer industry we have seen the benefits of real
   competition often made possible by intelligent government
   policy.

       When monopolies such as the original AT&T or the local
   cable company deprived the consumers of the benefits of
   competition, government has acted as a counterweight to
   protect consumers and give potential competitors a fair
   chance.  Since the break-up of AT&T eleven years ago, the
   use of long distance is up and prices are down more than 60%
   in real terms.

       When competition came to the telephone equipment
   business, consumers discovered that they could buy a
   telephone of their choice for less than $25 instead of
   renting one for $60 a year.

       We protected consumers in the Cable Act of 1992 by
   regulating prices and ensuring high-quality services only
   where no effective competition existed.  According to the
   FCC, the 1992 cable law has potentially saved consumers $3
   billion.

       The free and competitive market for computers has
   brought previously unimaginable technological capacity to
   our offices and our homes.  Forty years ago it was predicted
   that the worldwide market for computers would be ten to
   fifteen machines.  In 1980 there were, in essence, no
   personal computers in existence.  But in less than a decade,
   PC prices have dropped sharply while computing power has
   accelerated dynamically -- virtually doubling every eighteen
   months.  In the last quarter of 1994 Americans bought over
   5.8 million personal computers.

       At the federal, state, and local levels, we must
   continue to find new ways to promote competition and
   innovation.

       We must spur private investment.  The current auctions
   of PCS spectrum, proposed by President Clinton in 1993, are
   opening the door to new wireless technologies while raising
   billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury.  The result for
   consumers will be lower prices for wireless communication.

       Also, it will mean new wireless services, new jobs and
   more efficient, more competitive workers; office workers who
   will be able to work from their computers anywhere and still
   be connected to their homes or offices; truck drivers who
   will be able to get instant information on delivery
   requirements; or police officers who will be able to get mug
   shots and police reports on a computer terminal located in
   their patrol car.

       In addition, we can create the conditions for real
   competition by ensuring program providers nondiscriminatory
   access to information conduits and networks.  We have heard
   much in recent months about the strong beginnings of  Direct
   Broadcast Satellite services -- bringing up to 150 channels
   into every home anywhere in the country; allowing customers
   to watch every NFL game and hundreds of basketball games,
   and already serving 300,000 households across the nation.

       I've been a supporter of satellite services for a long
   time.  But today's competitive successes did not arise by
   happenstance or merely by the workings of an invisible hand.

       The program access provisions of  the Cable Act of 1992
   guaranteed that direct satellite services would have
   programming to provide -- a sound example of common sense
   governmental action that helps to create the conditions for
   real competition.  There was a problem because of
   distortions in the marketplace.  The federal government
   fixed that problem by opening up the market to competition.

       And where competition can come to the marketplace and
   put government out of business, it is critically important
   that it does so.  President Clinton and I have worked hard
   to reinvent the federal government.  Ninety-three per cent
   of the reinventing government proposals are in some stage of
   implementation.  In December, the President announced the
   major restructuring of five federal agencies.  And right now
   we have underway a comprehensive review in a second round of
   reinventing government.

       We have initiated a regulatory reform effort that will
   match good intentions with good regulations by encouraging
   citizen participation, simplifying regulatory processes and
   using information technology everywhere we can to meet our
   national goals of better customer service, innovation, and
   measurable results.

       I encourage you to do the same -- to look hard at the
   tasks you perform, to decide which are necessary and which
   have become superfluous -- to drive your own agencies to
   work faster, better and smarter.

       The issuance of our Joint Statement today comes at a
   critical -- and critically appropriate -- time as Congress
   begins debate over new telecommunications legislation, as
   state and local governments are building increasing momentum
   to open markets, and as nations around the world look to the
   United States for leadership.  The framework we issue today
   -- the fact that we at the federal and state levels can
   agree on the guideposts for the path to reform -- will send
   a clear signal that our resolve for revolutionary change is
   greater than ever before.

       Last year, unfortunately, telecommunications reform
   legislation fell by the wayside in the waning days of the
   Congress as the many varied participants responded more to
   their fears than to their hopes.

       That's not a surprise.  Any revolutionary era means, by
   definition, that great change is underway -- change that
   mixes legitimate concern about the shifting nature of
   competitive advantage with unrealistic fears of the unknown.

       Each industry is trying to enter new markets while
   keeping competitors out of its own old market.  The motto
   seems to be, "What's mine is mine -- what's yours is
   negotiable."  We have to break this impasse if we are going
   to create a vibrant, competitive information marketplace.
   Let me give you some examples.

       The regional phone companies legitimately want to use
   their expertise to compete in other markets.  But they fear
   that before they can do so, they will become "hollow
   monopolies" -- the purveyors of local telephone services,
   but only to customers that others do not wish to serve.

       As a result of those fears, most local phone companies
   are trying to delay the inevitable -- genuine competition
   for local telephone services.  They are viewed as delaying
   the game when they could be partners in negotiating the
   rules of the game.

       Long distance companies -- large and small -- want to
   ensure that their businesses are primarily dependent on a
   local telephone monopolist to reach their customers and vice
   versa; and they especially do not want to be dependent on a
   monopolist who is permitted to compete with them in their
   markets at the same time that they and local customers have
   no real choices for local service.

       So they are proposing a level of detail difficult to
   achieve in federal legislation before they are willing to
   support change.  They, in effect, are demanding that the
   footnotes to the rulebook be written before the game can
   begin.

       Cable companies, too, want to offer new services, like
   local telephony.  But they, too, fear that other competitors
   will use past regulatory advantage -- or the capital gained
   from past monopoly status -- to overwhelm them.

       Because of this fear, they are using the regulatory
   process and legal challenges to delay local telephone
   company entry into the cable market.  Some of them would
   like to bring the game to a halt before it even starts.

       Information service providers are concerned that
   telephone companies and cable companies will abuse their
   control of both content and conduit.  They will benefit from
   the buildout of high-speed networks, but fear being left out
   of the game altogether and being denied access to American
   households.

       And consumers themselves have fears; as workers and
   citizens, they don't want to be left out.  The Joint
   Statement that we issue today accurately describes advanced
   telecommunication services as a potential tool that can
   empower Americans, that can enhance economic opportunity and
   improve the delivery of public services.  But a tool can be
   used only by those who hold it in their hands.

       Consumers want to ensure that they are not
   disadvantaged by the change that does come to them -- that
   they do not find the cost of being in the game rising
   constantly with little benefit to justify it and no increase
   in the quality of play.

       As you know, because you deal with these issues every
   day, there is some truth and some exaggeration in each of
   these fears -- particularly the fears expressed by private
   economic interests.  We need to listen carefully to the
   voices of industry, but at the end of the day we must ensure
   that the marketplace favors real competition which is after
   all never without risk -- not only the desires or well-being
   of a particular competitor.

       How do we reconcile all these fears?  Not by making
   small changes to the present regulatory system.  Nor by
   discounting the legitimate concerns of market players
   because of the validity of these concerns.  Nor by
   continuing to protect monopolies and artificially
   subdividing the telecommunications marketplace.

       We can deal with all the fears of all the different
   players only by having the courage to throw out the
   regulated monopoly model that we've used for more than 60
   years and instead create a truly competitive marketplace
   where regulation is replaced by competition on a level
   playing field.

       We propose that the Administration work with the
   Congress, the industry, the public interest community and
   all of you gathered here today to decide in a timely manner
   the rules necessary for a fair game and let the play begin.
   No team should be allowed to bring in ringers or begin with
   unfair advantages gained from previous monopolistic
   positions and practices and no team should be allowed to
   unduly slow or complicate play.

       But the game should not begin on some arbitrary date
   without rules at all on the mistaken assumption that a
   calendar can replace a rulebook.  Too many people and
   businesses have too much at stake to be subject to the
   vagaries of trying to play now and figure out the rules
   later.

       In this new competitive world, interconnection rules
   will ensure that new network service providers -- including
   utilities and cable companies that wish to offer switched
   digital services -- can compete fairly with incumbent phone
   companies.  The regional phone companies can compete on even
   terms with inter-exchange companies in both local and long-
   distance markets.  Thousands of information service
   providers and programmers will be able to compete because we
   will work with the states to ensure they all have non-
   discriminatory access to regulated networks.

       And new, more effective universal service provisions
   will ensure that all consumers will be able to enjoy the
   lower prices and greater choices competition will make
   possible.

       We can create such a world -- indeed, we must -- in
   order to meet the needs and eliminate the fears of
   consumers.

       But we will not have full and open competition if
   private interests use regulatory and legislative proceedings
   as tools for short-term competitive advantage rather than a
   mechanism for the long-term public good.  Regulatory delay
   must never be permitted to become a tactic of private,
   competitive advantage.

       So I hope that in your discussions today you will begin
   to cut through the stalemate by carefully unbundling the
   real from the imaginary.

       I suggest a straightforward approach. Competition is
   always better than monopoly.  But monopoly power must never
   be confused with competition.  Two enemies of competition
   are monopoly power and unwise government regulation.

       We must remember, after all, that the goal we seek is
   real competition.  Not the illusion of competition; not the
   distant prospect of competition.  Because only real
   competition can meet the test that consumers rightly demand
   -- that prices be lower; quality higher; and choice,
   greater.  That's just common sense.

       That is why, for example, we have already said that we
   cannot support a proposal to fully deregulate the local
   telephone exchanges upon the mere prospect that some
   theoretical competitor might be able to provide some
   services to some hypothetical customer.  That is an allusion
   of competition.  It's not competition.  Competition must be
   real.  But by the same token, we must not use the rationale
   of scarcity to limit competition in a time of  technological
   abundance.

       Where real competition is possible, we must ready the
   stage for its appearance.

       And where it is real, we must be prepared to re-examine
   past regulatory mechanisms.  For example, current cable
   legislation established rate regulation in monopoly markets.
   But some are suggesting that cable markets are changing
   faster than anticipated.  If the arrival of direct broadcast
   satellite and video dialtone eliminates the need for rate
   regulation, so much the better.  I have no interest in
   seeing regulatory mechanisms perpetuated one instant longer
   than necessary.  I'm sure everyone feels that way.

       We will listen with an open mind.  We will ask what
   competition exists, for what markets and for what services.
   We will ask what can be done to speed up competition even
   more.  We consider how best to reach our essential goal of
   protecting consumers -- and liberating consumer demand.

       It is to learn from and listen to you that I called
   this summit today.  And it is why I encourage you to join
   the issues today with a common vision and common goals.

       We all look forward to working with the leaders of the
   104th Congress.  We are already building a bi-partisan
   coalition for reform.  We are eager to work with Leader Dole
   and Speaker Gingrich, Senators Pressler and Hollings, and
   other Senators working in this field; and with Congressmen
   Bliley and Dingell, Fields and Markey.  As last year's
   overwhelming vote in the House of Representatives
   demonstrated, the case for change transcends political
   boundaries.

       That signal is amplified by your efforts that are
   already underway.  Represented here are state and local
   governments that are introducing competition to markets that
   were previously the domain of monopoly providers; that are
   introducing new models of telemedicine to reduce costs and
   improve health care delivery; and that are linking their
   schools, libraries and citizens to the Information
   superhighway -- a goal of particular importance to us.

       You have been the innovators -- you have had to be, in
   order to keep pace with technology.  While much attention
   has been focused on the federal government, many of you have
   completely rewritten your states' telecommunications rule
   books.  You've introduced competition into the marketplace
   and found ways to promote new services, better quality, and
   lower prices all at the same time.  There are many inspiring
   examples.  I salute you on the work you've done and are
   doing.

       Not just communities but whole nations will be helped
   by the coming of the information revolution.  Because open
   markets are just as critical around the world as they are in
   the United States.

       Free market access will provide critical support for
   the economic development of other nations, whose businesses
   and workers need access to advanced technologies if they are
   to remain -- or to become -- competitive in a global
   economy.

       And open markets will allow people around the world to
   have access to and choose from the best in educational,
   entertainment and creative products such as films, sound
   recordings, computer software and books.

       When nations close markets they close minds and
   opportunities as well.  In Europe, quotas on television
   limit U.S. programming; in Canada, my home state's favorite
   cable channel has been forced off  the air; in Australia,
   preferences are provided to domestic films, and in Columbia
   a new law just passed to set day-time quotas for television.

       The United States must fight for open markets so that
   our products can be sold worldwide.  We must fight for open
   markets because the principle of free expression of ideas is
   at stake. We must fight for open markets to protect the
   hundreds of thousands of jobs in the entertainment and
   content industry.   And we will do so -- including at the
   upcoming G-7 ministerial conference in Brussels next month.

       Still, there are challenges that remain in translating
   our purpose and our objectives into action.

       The words of Alexis de Toqueville, written in 1835,
   demonstrates that the case for change transcends boundaries
   of time as well..  A keen observer of American democracy, de
   Toqueville wrote:

            I think that it is an arduous undertaking to
             excite the enthusiasm of a democratic nation for
             any theory that does not have a visible, direct,
             and immediate bearing on the occupations of their
             daily lives.... For it is enthusiasm which makes
             men's [and women's] minds leap off the beaten
             track and brings about great intellectual, as well
             as political, revolution.

       We have seen -- and I have described today -- the
   evidence of  the information revolution that is already upon
   us.  Its historical genesis is inseparable from our quest
   for freedom  -- from the printing press that Thomas Paine
   used to print "Common Sense" to the explosion of talk radio
   and the growth of the Internet.  Its prospect is for the
   pursuit of happiness, from jobs and education and health
   care to the simpler pleasure of watching football on a
   Sunday afternoon.  Its time has come.

       Almost exactly a year ago today, I told industry
   leaders that we were meeting on common ground, not to
   predict the future, but to make firm the arrangements for
   its arrival.  Today, with you, we meet again on common
   ground, again to make firm the arrangements that will allow
   the information revolution to have an even more visible,
   direct and immediate impact on the lives of all Americans.

       The President, Secretary Brown and I, and all the
   members of this Administration here today, look forward to
   working together with you.

       Thank you.