TELECOM BILL COULD MEAN FUTURE IS NOW

Hold onto your remotes. If President Clinton signs the telecommunications overhaul bill as expected, cable and telephone customers will be catapulted into the future.

The changes may be a little intimidating at first -- Southwestern Bell offering cable, MCI as a local phone service carrier -- but local communications experts agree that consumers will come out winners if the industry is deregulated.

They cite the 1984 break-up of AT&T, once Americans' sole choice for long distance service. Today, long distance rate wars between Sprint, MCI, AT&T and the many other companies benefit customers.

Most communications companies have been vocal about the telecom bill.

Roger Harms, general manager of TCI Cablevision in Cape Girardeau, said his company welcomes the competition.

"There are always drawbacks when there's competition, but it makes you that much better," he said. "In some places, we're already getting into the phone business."

Shirlene Krewson, LDD's director of regulatory affairs, said her company wants to be a "one-stop shop" for consumers, allowing them to get local, long-distance, cable and Internet service from one company.

"We were sweating at times, but this legislation seems to be something we can live with," Krewson said. "Diversity will be the key in the future."

One of LDD's concerns with the legislation was a provision allowing the Federal Communications Commission to decide which local service phone companies would be allowed into the long distance market. To do so under Telecom, they would have to prove competition existed in their local markets.

LDD feared that, with government cutbacks, the FCC would be unable to judge properly which local service companies could go into the long distance market. Lawmakers rewrote the bill to say that the Department of Justice will make rulings before the FCC gives permission to local service companies.

Other companies seem to be waiting for the president's approval before discussing the telecom legislation. When a Southwestern Bell spokesman was asked his company's opinion of it, he faxed a statement from SBC Communications CEO Edward E. Whitmore Jr., made Thursday.

"We are extremely pleased with today's passage of the federal telecommunications reform legislation," it said. "The SBC Communications family of companies looks forward to operating in this new dynamic marketplace."

The only groups who stand to hurt under the new law are "mom-and-pop operations," according to Jim Dufek, video operations manager at Southeast Missouri State University. Giants like TCI Cablevision could lower rates considerably and still make a profit.

Other giants, like Southwestern Bell, already are in the cable market in the eastern United States and in England and are making a profit.

"A lot of people think this is about programming and phone rates, but that's not it at all," Dufek said. "This is about the information market. Our televisions will be everything we do to communicate."