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OCR for page 63
Antitrust Enforcement and the
Telecommunications Revolution:
Friends, Not Enemies
ROBERT E. LITAN
I will start with a confession: I am a telecommunications neo-
phyte, having only recently learned how to use the Internet. But I
know from my job and from casual reading that the United States—
and indeed the world is in the midst of a telecommunications revo-
lution that will have profound consequences for every aspect of our
lives.
At the global level, telecommunications helped end the Cold
War. The former communist countries could not control the flow of
information that personal computers and television delivered about
life in the West. Ultimately, political freedom itself spilled over from
West to East.
Within the United States, telecommunications products and ser-
vices are powering economic growth. According to the Council of
Economic Advisers, firms engaged in the information-services sector
of our economy including computers, software, telecommunica-
tions services, and equipment accounted for 9 percent of the
nation's Gross Domestic Product in 1993. Assuming the admin-
istration's telecommunications reform proposals are enacted by the
next Congress, this share could double over the following decade.
Meanwhile, advances in telecommunications have been trans-
forming our daily lives. It is difficult to remember life without fax
machines or e-mail, both of which have dramatically speeded up
63
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64
ROBERT E. LIMB
communications on the job. Some people may already feel the same
about videoconferencing, which may be standard practice in rela-
tively few companies now but surely will be common throughout the
country in just a few short years.
In our homes, the telecommunications revolution has already
dramatically lowered long-distance telephone rates, while bringing
dozens of video channels to our television sets. Millions of Ameri-
cans are now also using online information services and the Internet
to communicate with each other, with a growing number of libraries
and other databases, and with people around the world.
The future promises even more video interactivity. Once they
are fully built, fiber optic highways and satellites will do for video
what copper wire did for voice: allow individuals to interact with one
another rather than passively receive information or entertainment.
These are not simply pie-in-the-sky predictions. By the time the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) completes its auction,
investors are likely to have plunked down billions of dollars for spec-
trum rights that will enable providers to deliver these services to the
public.
The question this paper addresses is: What public-policy issues
are raised by the spread of computer- and video-based interactivity?
There are many, and I certainly do not feel competent to address them
all. Instead, I would like to concentrate on two very simple but
powerfully important objectives that government policy makers
should focus on as the telecommunications revolution proceeds.
First, policies should be in place to assure that firms in all parts
of the telecommunications industry those building the infrastruc-
ture and those developing the content that will travel over it have
the maximum incentive to innovate and to develop and deliver prod-
ucts and services of the highest quality at the lowest cost.
Second, the telecommunications services that are generated
should be made available broadly, not just to the fortunate few. In-
forrnation networks have positive externalities: the more people
hooked up to the networks, the more valuable the hookups are for
each participant.
Moreover, information is what economists call a public good.
We educate our children, at public expense, by giving them the infor-
mation and skills they will need to lead productive lives, because it is
in everyone's interest for all kids to grow up to be responsible adults.
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ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT
65
Similarly, we provide libraries, also at public expense, so that knowl-
edge is made freely available to all segments of society.
Now that technology is revolutionizing the way information is
delivered—over wires, over the air, and through computers it is
vitally important that all citizens continue to have at least some ac-
cess to the information services of the modern age. This does not
mean that everyone should be entitled to order movies on demand in
their homes at subsidized rates. However, it does mean that great
attention will have to be paid to ensuring that all of us have some basic
level of access to the services and information that will be delivered
over the information highways of tomorrow. By making sure that
competition governs the telecommunications marketplace, the fed-
eral government can both provide incentives for innovation and en-
courage widespread availability of new telecommunications services.
This is an objective shared by all government agencies respon-
sible for telecommunications policy: the FCC, the Department of
Commerce, and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.
The rest of this paper will explain why competition is so important
and how, in concrete terms, the Antitrust Division in particular has
promoted and will continue to promote innovation in the telecommu-
nications industry by protecting the competitive process.
THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPETITION
The notion that competition is critical to the development of
telecommunications services has not been, and may still not be, ac-
cepted by everyone. For decades following the invention of the
telephone, for example, it was widely assumed that telephone service
was a natural monopoly. Public policy makers embraced this as-
sumption by allowing AT&T to run the nation's telephone network
free from competitive challenge.
More recently, some parties have suggested that the need for
standards in computer-based systems is incompatible with competi-
tion. For example, Bill Gates has asserted that Microsoft's operating
systems for personal computers have become industry standards and
thus have characteristics of a natural monopoly. While each of these
arguments in support of natural monopoly may be appealing superfi-
cially, neither, on closer examination, justifies the rejection of the
central role of competition that they both imply.
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66
ROBERT E. LITAN
Consider first the claim of natural monopoly in the telephone
business. This notion was roundly rejected when the Department of
Justice and Judge Harold Greene forced the breakup of AT&T in the
early 1980s. The breakup was not a universally popular move, even
inside the Reagan administration. In fact, according to published
accounts, President Reagan, Secretary of Commerce Malcolm
Baldrige, and Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger believed that
the AT&T monopoly was a national treasure that should not be bro-
ken up. But William Baxter, then the assistant attorney general for
antitrust at the Justice Department and now professor emeritus at
Stanford Law School, insisted that only by divesting the regional
telephone monopolies from AT&T's long-distance monopoly would
long-distance competitors to AT&T have a fair chance to hook up to
local telephone networks.
Professor Baxter and Judge Greene were right. Look what has
happened since the breakup:
· Over 100 companies have entered the long-distance telephone
market, knocking AT&T's share of that business down from 100
percent to 60 percent. Real residential long-distance rates have fallen
by about half, in part due to the increased competition. While the
long-distance market could use even more competition AT&T,
MCI, and Sprint today account for about 90 percent of the business-
the entry of so many firms rebuts the view that long-distance tele-
phone service is a natural monopoly;
· A less well-recognized but potentially even more important
product of the AT&T breakup is that it helped unleash the fiber optics
revolution, making possible an exciting range of telecommunications
capabilities. Corning Glass invented fiber optic cable and attempted
to sell it to AT&T in the early 1970s, but AT&T was a monopolist
and probably had little interest in ripping up its existing copper-wire
network in order to replace it with fiber. It was not until AT&T was
broken up that the use of fiber optics really took off. In part, this was
because AT&T, Corning, and others working on fiber optics were by
then able to bring down costs. Fiber became cheaper than the micro-
wave technology that was once thought to be the main competitor to
copper wires. However, the breakup itself almost certainly pushed
things along. New entrants into the long-distance telephone busi-
ness, like Sprint, MCI, and their smaller competitors, turned to Corn-
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ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT
67
ing for fiber optic cables. Eventually, AT&T too was forced to install
fiber in order to match the quality and low cost of its competitors'
services.
Now that long-distance telephone markets have successfully
withstood the dissolution of the natural-monopoly model, the next
candidate for competition is the local telephone business. Today, this
market is virtually monopolized by the regional Bell operating com-
panies (RBOCs), which carry more than 99 percent of the local traf-
fic in their regions. The local market may look very different in the
near future, however.
It is possible, if not likely, that within a few years the coaxial
cable owned by cable television operators will be delivering local
telephone traffic, just as it is doing today for nearly 400,000 custom-
ers in the United Kingdom. In addition, a variety of wireless tech-
nologies—including cellular, specialized mobile radio, and the new
personal communications services portions of the spectrum—could
create powerful competition to land-line telephone services.
Of course, cable and other alternatives to the RBOCs' local tele-
phone monopolies will arrive only if state and local regulators permit
them to compete. So far, only a few states have taken steps to remove
restrictions to entry into the telephone business. Later, this paper will
address the need for other states to eliminate these artificial and un-
necessary barriers to entry.
What about the claim that the need for standards leaves little
room for competition? This argument is flat wrong. It may well be
true that once a standard has been accepted in the marketplace, such
as the QWERTY layout on a typewriter, competition is no longer
possible. But, with the one qualification I will discuss shortly, com-
petition should actually govern the development of the standards
themselves.
Microsoft proves this point. Microsoft gained a monopoly in
operating systems for personal computers in the 1980s by success-
fully marketing DOS and Windows, which became industry stan-
dards. There was nothing unlawful about this. But then the company
adopted certain licensing practices—"per processor" licenses that
taxed competing operating systems and set lengthy terms and large
minimum commitments. This effectively froze competing operating
systems out of the original equipment market, the largest channel for
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ROBERT E. LITAN
distributing this type of software. The Justice Department sued
Microsoft because these practices, coupled with restrictive nondis-
closure agreements imposed on developers of applications software,
unlawfully entrenched the company's monopoly and thereby deprived
competitors of a fair shot at becoming the next standard. Microsoft
has signed a consent decree, which the District Court for the District
of Columbia disapproved in February 1995 but which I fully expect
the Court of Appeals to approve on appeal. When it does, this decree
will help level the playing field in the PC operating systems market.
The Microsoft case teaches an important lesson. It is perfectly
legitimate to own a technology or product that becomes a standard,
but it is against the law to erect barricades to competing, would-be
standards. This proposition is especially important in high-technol-
ogy industries, where rapid innovation may create frequent opportu-
nities for new standards to replace old ones. If the owners of the old
standards are allowed to use any means to block entry of the new,
then innovation itself will be discouraged and consumers will lose
out.
The one qualification to the proposition that competition should
govern the development of standards is that in some cases, it may be
in society's interest for competitors to agree on standards, or, in
effect, to work jointly to create standards. For example, manufactur-
ers may lawfully cooperate to set quality standards, saving regulators
the time and expense of certification. A number of bodies in the
telecommunications and computer fields perform similar functions.
But even in these cases, the joint-venture partners in the stan-
dards process must not abuse their legitimate collaboration to distort
the competitive process. Thus, standards-setting bodies should be
open to all parties who meet reasonable criteria for membership. In
addition, the standards-setting process must be a fair one and not
serve simply as a device for preventing new competitors or new
standards from entering the market.
In sum, competition must remain the central governing principle
for the information age. Competition encourages continued innova-
tion and guarantees consumers the lowest prices for telecommunica-
tions and information services, and by so doing it promotes the wide-
spread availability of these services.
If there is any doubt about these propositions, one need only look
to Europe and Japan. Both regions have continued to follow the
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ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT
69
state-directed, monopoly model in telecommunications, and they now
find themselves playing catch-up to the United States. For instance,
it was recently reported that Japan's telephone monopoly, NTT, is far
behind the U.S. regional telephone companies in laying fiber optic
cable (Hamilton, 19941. In addition, European governments have
been taken to task for sheltering their telecommunications giants from
both domestic and foreign competition (The Economist, 1994~. This
criticism is not hard to understand. One recent study projects that an
end to telephone monopolies in Europe would not only lower prices
but improve quality by 40 percent (Hudson, 19941.
The benefits of competition are being recognized closer to home.
In September, Canadian regulators took a major step to promote
competition by allowing telephone companies to transmit video im-
ages and by opening up local telephone markets to competition from
cable television operators and other sources. If the United States
wants to continue to lead the world in telecommunications innova-
tion, it must act soon to move in a direction similar to Canada's; that
is, it must clear away the remaining obstacles to fair and effective
competition throughout the telecommunications industry.
PRESERVING AND PROMOTING COMPETITION
THROUGH ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT
Along with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Justice
Department's Antitrust Division is charged by federal law with pro-
tecting and promoting competition. Next, this paper will consider
how the division has been fulfilling this mandate in ways that affect
the future of telecommunications.
Merger Enforcement
One of the defining characteristics of the current revolution in
the telecommunications field is the dizzying pace of corporate
mergers. It seems that not a week goes by without one or two major
mergers or corporate alliances being announced, each advertised as
an ideal way to accelerate the building of the information super-
highway by combining the unique talents and expertise of the two
partners.
In many cases, this may be true, and the division will not stand in
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ROBERT E. LITAN
the way of these arrangements. However, we draw the line, as the
law requires us to, at mergers that threaten to concentrate economic
power in particular markets or to erect barriers to the entry of com-
petitors.
Mergers involving telecommunications and computer firms can
pose special problems for those who enforce antitrust laws, because
many of the firms in these industries already have dominant, or even
monopoly, positions. The seven RBOCs, for example, each currently
has a monopoly in local telephone service. The same is true for
almost all cable television firms in the markets they serve. Other
high-technology firms also have substantial market power in various
lines of business.
Firms that are already dominant in their markets surely know
that neither the division nor the FTC is likely to permit them to
engage in horizontal acquisitions, that is, purchases of direct com-
petitors. As a result, many of the high-technology mergers we have
seen so far involve the marriages of firms dominant in one market
with firms in related markets such as RBOCs proposing mergers
with cable companies, telephone companies active in different geo-
graphic areas proposing mergers, and so on. The critical question
posed by these mergers is whether they will allow one or both of the
firms with dominance in one market to extend market power to a
second market a special danger where the acquiring firm is a regu-
lated monopoly. If so, antitrust enforcers try to persuade the parties
to revise their plans in ways that remove the anticompetitive effects
of the transaction. If this fails, we will sue to halt the merger.
Two recent examples demonstrate how it is possible to prune the
anticompetitive effects from otherwise lawful telecommunications
mergers. The first is the union between AT&T and McCaw Cellular
Communication, both dominant players in their respective markets.
As noted earlier, AT&T still has about 60 percent of the long-dis-
tance telephone market. Overall, McCaw carries about 30 percent of
the nation's cellular traffic, but in some regions of the country this
figure is closer to 50 percent. In seeking to acquire McCaw, AT&T
clearly wanted to provide seamless local and long-distance cellular
service to customers.
Without any conditions, however, this proposed merger posed
risks to competition in several markets. Under the original proposal,
the parties wanted to be able to market to their customers a com-
OCR for page 71
ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT
71
bined long-distance/local-service cellular package, without giving
them a choice of another long-distance carrier. Given McCaw's
market power in various localities and AT&T's market power in
long-distance, this proposal could have significantly distorted com-
petition in the long-distance market by diverting customers away
from other long-distance companies based on factors other than qual-
ity or price, further entrenching AT&T's already dominant position
in long distance.
To address this problem, the division conditioned its approval of
the merger on McCaw's providing to competing long-distance carri-
ers equal access to its subscribers. This is what the RBOCs now are
required to do for long-distance traffic on their land lines, and the
Department of Justice has proposed that they do the same if they are
allowed to provide long-distance service to cellular customers. In
addition, the consent decree that the parties signed prohibits AT&T
from offering its local and long-distance cellular services as a bundle;
the company must instead separately price each service.
The AT&T/McCaw merger also posed a threat to competition in
local cellular markets. AT&T currently is the dominant manufac-
turer of equipment for cellular carriers, including many of the RBOCs
that compete with McCaw. Given the nature of cellular systems,
once a carrier begins purchasing a particular brand of equipment, it
gets locked in to that brand for some period of time. The additional
danger posed by the merger was that AT&T could exploit its position
in the cellular-equipment market by raising prices or denying or de-
laying the delivery of parts and other services to RBOCs that com-
pete with McCaw in local cellular service. Knowing this, rival cellu-
lar carriers and AT&T/McCaw could implicitly decide to keep
cellular prices high. The consent decree prevents this result by pro-
hibiting AT&T from such conduct. In addition, it addresses the lock-
in problem by allowing, under certain circumstances, cellular equip-
ment customers of AT&T to sell back their equipment to AT&T, if
they want to, at cost minus a reasonable allowance for depreciation.
The second telecommunications merger approved subject to im-
portant conditions is the purchase by British Telecommunications
(BT) of a 20 percent interest in MCI, as well as the creation of a
global joint venture between the two companies. This transaction
raised important telecommunications issues in an international con-
text. Like AT&T and McCaw, MCI wanted its equity partnership
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ROBERT E. LITAN
with BT in order to enhance its ability to offer seamless telecommu-
nications services, in this case on a worldwide basis. If BT did not
have market power in telecommunications services in the United
Kingdom, it is unlikely that either the proposed equity investment by
BT in MCI or the joint venture would pose any competitive risks.
But BT was and remains the dominant telephone company in the
United Kingdom. By virtue of this dominance, BT would gain from
the proposed transaction both the incentives and the ability to favor
its joint venture with MCI in pricing, interconnection, and possibly
other ways all to the detriment of U.S. users of other global tele-
communications providers. If this occurred, then the prices on tele-
phone traffic between our two countries would increase.
Accordingly, the division imposed several conditions on the BT/
MCI transaction. Most important, the parties agreed to publish de-
tailed information about the terms and conditions of services that BT
provides to the joint venture and to MCI. This information will give
ammunition to any disfavored competitors that wish to lodge com-
plaints with regulatory authorities in either the United States or the
United Kingdom. Such a "transparency" provision is less intrusive
and less costly, but no less effective, than direct regulation.
In addition, the consent decree prohibits BT from providing to
either the joint venture or to MCI confidential information about
other international telecommunications providers. Moreover, the
parties agreed that if a significant act of discrimination in favor of
the joint venture or MCI occurs in the future, the department may
seek modification of the decree to strengthen its nondiscrimination
provisions.
What about future mergers in the telecommunications industry?
It is difficult to be specific, because some are pending now before the
division. It is possible, however, to offer several broad comments on
the relation between competition policy and mergers in the industry.
There has been much talk about "the" information superhigh-
way. In fact, several highways appear to be in the works land-line
telephone, land-line cable, and various wireless technologies all
competing to deliver voice and video content to businesses and homes
around the country. No one really knows which of these highways
will be successful. That is what markets are for to let the firms that
are now spending billions of dollars to build these highways fight it
out.
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ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT
73
For those charged with enforcing the antitrust laws, three con-
cerns are paramount.
First, we do not want any highway owner that now has a regu-
lated monopoly in its market to cross-subsidize. That is, cable opera-
tors who want to enter telephone markets, or local telephone compa-
nies that may eventually gain entry into long-distance markets, should
fund their expansion only from the capital markets and not from their
customers. The same is true for regulated telephone companies hop-
ing to offer video and other services. To allow any other result is to
permit the marketplace to favor monopolists, to the detriment of
consumers.
Second, at least for the next several years, we should not allow
the owner of any one highway in a given geographic area to merge
with or buy out a competing highway. If, for example, local tele-
phone companies were permitted to merge with their cable televi-
sion competitors in the same service territory, neither firm would
retain the incentive to develop and supply the new interactive ser-
vices that consumers have been promised. This situation may change
once technology affords consumers more ways to receive informa-
tion in the home. In the meantime, however, it is prudent to prohibit
for a reasonable period marriages of cable and telephone firms oper-
ating in the same service areas; the administration has suggested 5
years.
Third, we will be especially watchful of mergers or joint ven-
tures between owners of highways and owners of content. Such
transactions may create strong incentives for the integrated entity to
deny competing programmers access to the highways. In such cases,
we will be prepared either to block the merger or to condition it on
"equal access" requirements that prevent such discrimination, as we
did with TCI's acquisition of Liberty Media.
Removing Barriers To Entry
It is one thing to prevent mergers that threaten to choke off
competition. It is another to ensure that such competition is allowed
to take place. Current law, however, largely presumes that certain
telecommunications markets should be monopolies and therefore
insulated from competition. Therefore, unless the Supreme Court
holds that federal law is unconstitutional (as have three federal
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74
ROBERT E. LITAN
courts), local telephone companies will remain barred from offering
video services in their service territories. As noted earlier, local
telephone companies are legally insulated from competition in all
but a few states. In addition, the consent decree governing the
AT&T breakup prohibits the RBOCs from competing in long-dis-
tance telephone services.
In 1994, Congress came very close to enacting comprehensive
legislation that would have paved the way for erasing each of these
barriers to competition. The Clinton administration worked closely
with Congress to achieve passage of this legislation and intends to
continue that partnership in 1995. In the meantime, the administra-
tion urges the states to remove barriers preventing new entrants in the
local telephone business. New York, Wisconsin, Illinois, and a num-
ber of other states have already taken such steps or will soon do so.
Competition is vital if America is to maintain its leadership in
telecommunications technologies and services. Competition also will
best advance the goal of universal service, since competition will
encourage providers to lower their own costs, and thus their prices to
consumers.
Still, even a vibrantly competitive telecommunications market-
place will not deliver its services to all consumers. Some will lack
the income to buy. Others services may be too costly for private
suppliers profitably to provide. The most efficient and least distort-
ing way to fill these gaps is to provide subsidies to those who would
otherwise not be able to purchase competitively priced telecommuni-
cations services. The legislation considered by Congress last year
would have directed the appropriate federal and state regulatory bod-
ies to move in this direction.
CONCLUSION
The message here has been a simple one. Monopolies in tele-
communications are dead or dying. This is good news, for only
through vigorous competition will the telecommunications revolu-
tion we are now witnessing bring its full benefits to American con-
sumers. The Justice Department's Antitrust Division is working hard
to make this happen. We hope that Congress will assist us in this task
by enacting soon the comprehensive telecommunications legislation
that is so sorely needed.
OCR for page 75
r -God
REFERENCES
H~10n,D.P. I///. Augusl15, 1994. Geuingwi~d: big AberopOc
piece is privale seclor's job, Japan Caters say. Al.
Hudson, R.L. -~8f^~[ Seplember 30, 1994. Wodd business (A specie
Upon): An industry ~voludon. R20.
e En. Augusl 13, 1994. Europe's dash far me Alum. 13.
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Contributors
STEVEN D. DORFMAN is a senior vice president and member of
the Office of the Chairman of GM Hughes Electronics Corp. and its
subsidiary, Hughes Aircraft Company, and president of the Hughes
Telecommunications and Space Company. He joined Hughes in
1957 and, in subsequent years, held positions of increasing responsi-
bility in management, systems engineering, and electro-optics. Mr.
Dorfman was named to his present position in October 1993 after
serving more than 2 years as president of Hughes Space and Commu-
nications Company. Prior to Mr. Dorfman's Space and Communica-
tions Company assignment, he was president and chief executive
officer of Hughes Communications Inc. (HCI), the Hughes subsid-
iary that owns and operates communications satellites. Mr. Dorfman
was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1992. He
received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Uni-
versity of Florida and his master's degree in the same field from the
University of Southern California.
ROBERT E. KAHN has been president of the Corporation for Na-
tional Research Initiatives (CNRI) in Reston, Virginia since 1986.
CNRI was created as a not-for-profit organization to provide leader-
ship and funding for research and development of the national infor-
mation infrastructure. From 1972 to 1985, he was a program man-
77
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78
CONTRIBUTORS
ager, deputy director, and ultimately director of the Information Pro-
cessing Techniques Office at the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency. He is a member of the National Academy of Engi-
neering, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engi-
neers, and twice recipient of the Secretary of Defense Meritorious
Civilian Service Award. Dr. Kahn received his B.E.E. from City
College of New York and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
engineering from Princeton University.
ROBERT E. LITAN is an associate director of the Office of Man-
agement and Budget. At the time this paper was written, Dr. Litan
was deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division of the
U.S. Justice Department, where he supervised the division's civil
non-merger enforcement program and the development of the di-
vision's policies affecting regulated industries. He came to this posi-
tion in September 1993, following 9 years as a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution, where he also was director of two research
centers in the institution's Economics Studies Program. Dr. Litan
formerly was a partner and then counsel to Powell, Goldstein, Frazer
& Murphy, an associate at Arnold & Porter, and the regulatory and
energy specialist for President Carter's Council of Economic Advis-
ers. He has a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of Finance,
a J.D. from Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale
University.
JOHN E. MAJOR is the senior vice president and assistant chief
corporate staff officer for Motorola. In those roles, he oversees
Motorola's product, software, and manufacturing research, as well as
manages Motorola's global telecommunications network. One of his
key initiatives is leading Motorola's effort to be a global leader in
software technology. Previously, he managed the Worldwide Sys-
tems Group that developed and manufactured private voice and data
radio systems for public-safety and business users. Mr. Major serves
on the boards of directors of the Telecommunications Industry Asso-
ciation and the Electronics Industry Association. He is a member of
the National Academy of Sciences, where he serves on the Computer
Science and Telecommunications Board. His degrees include a B.S.
in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of
Rochester, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of
OCR for page 79
CONTRIBUTORS
79
Illinois, an M.B.A. from Northwestern University, and a J.D. from
Loyola University.
JOHN S. MAYO is president emeritus of AT&T Bell Laboratories.
He served as president from July 1991 until March 1995. Through-
out his career at Bell Laboratories, Dr. Mayo has played an important
role in the development of digital technologies that have brought the
world to the threshold of the information age. Dr. Mayo is a fellow of
the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Among
his awards is the 1990 National Medal of Technology, given for his
contributions to the technological foundations for information age
communications. Dr. Mayo was elected to the National Academy of
Engineering in 1979. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees
in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University in
1952, 1953, and 1955, respectively.
ROBERT W. STEARNS is vice president of corporate development
for the Compaq Computer Corp. He directs the company's strategic
planning and business development activities, including acquisitions,
joint ventures and alliances, advanced market research, and technol-
ogy assessment. He is also responsible for coordinating legislative
policy issues and Compaq's involvement in various technical stan-
dards-setting organizations and trade associations. Mr. Stearns joined
Compaq in July 1993 from McKinsey & Co., where he served as a
consultant to high-technology clients. He previously held senior
management positions at a number of technology companies, includ-
ing Motorola/Codex, Banyan Systems, Motorola's Information Sys-
tems Group, and Management Technologies Inc., a decision-support
software company that he founded. Mr. Stearns speaks and writes
frequently on matters related to the computer and telecommunica-
tions industries and innovation in technological organizations. He
graduated with a B.S. degree in chemistry from Brown University in
1971 and an M.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology in 1973.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
telephone companies
