NEWS                                              April 2, 1996

HUNDT CALLS FOR PRAGMATIC POLICYMAKING
       
In a speech today to the Variety/Schroder Wertheim Big Picture Media Conference, FCC
Chairman Reed Hundt outlined the challenges facing the Commission as it implements the
Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Hundt described opening the local telephone market to competition as "perhaps the most
critical economic goal of the new law" and, comparing the local telephone company to the
Dallas Cowboys, said "Congress has said that the wannabe competitors, the Washington
Redskins, have a right to borrow Emmitt Smith for any number of plays.  That's called
purchasing an unbundled element of the incumbent network..."

Hundt express four concerns about the FCC's ability to write the rules for this new game:

1) The "extraordinarily rushed schedule" requiring key decisions to be made before Labor
Day combined with a budget standoff that keeps the FCC operating at a reduced level such
that "...I have to worry about whether I can pay for air conditioning for public servants
who are putting in 15-hour days...trying to do the right thing for the country."

2) "Competition policy is so new that no state has a significant body of evidence on how
its own competition policies work...The FCC and the states are exploring unchartered
territory together."

3) ...[N]ew laws are fields of play for lawyers.... It would be better to have clear
structural rules for competition that reduce the significance of litigation in setting
connection policy."

4) Noting that the FCC has to "write our fair rules of competition during the worst of
seasons for bipartisan policy..." Hundt asked, "Should we spend our time in playing the
gotcha game, or should we focus on solving the complex problems of interconnection?"

Hundt said in closing, "I'm convinced we can figure out, at the FCC and at the state
level, how to write real words in real rules that create these real opportunities.  To get
over the mountain we can't slip to the right or the left into the gully of partisanship. 
We have to stay on the practical path of pragmatic policymaking.  Then the business world
can deliver on its promise to the country.  Our children will have finer educations and
finer jobs as a result."

-FCC-