Page 84 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

72 Communication, Commerce and Power

75 White House Memorandum to Dean Burch, Chairman FCC, 23 Janu-
ary 1970. Quoted in Kinsley, Outer Space and Inner Sanctums, p. 157
(emphasis added).
76 Burch was a well-known ideologue in favor of private enterprise. Oppo-
nents to his FCC appointment called him 'rash' and a 'reckless intellec-
tual hipshooter,' among other things. Unnamed sources quoted in
Magnant, Domestic Satellite, p. 160.
77 Hudson, Communication Satellites, pp. 46--7. According to Burch, the
'public interest' is served by actions that 'create a prevailing climate in
which the widest possible range and variety of services are provided to
the public by the greatest practical number of independent entities, each
one seeking to satisfy public wants in its own way.' From Dean Burch,
'Public Utility Regulation: In Pursuit of the Public Interest', Public
Utilities Fortnightly (September 1973) 70.
78 Details on these proposals are available in Smith, Communication via
Satellite, pp. 168-72.
79 FCC recommendations quoted in Kinsley, Outer Space and Inner Sanc-
tums, p. 176.
80 Smith, Communication via Satellite, p. 175.
81 See Magnant, Domestic Satellite, pp. 112-40.
82 Jill Hills, Deregulating Telecoms, Competition and Control in the US,
Japan and Britain (London: Frances Pinter, 1986) p. 61. In response to
the emergence of the Open Skies approach, AT&T Chairman John D.
deButts assured shareholders that '[in the words] of our first presi-
dent, ... "We have established and organized the business, and we do
not propose to have it taken from us".' Quoted in Magnant, Domestic
Satellite, p. 186; also see pp. 170-1.
83 Kinsley, Outer Space and Inner Sanctums, pp. 154-5.
84 'Message from the President of the US' to House of Representatives,
90th Cong., lst sess., August 1967, p. 4.
85 Interview with Jean Pruitt, Associate Administrator for International
Affairs, NTIA, 4 March 1994, Washington, DC.
86 Jill Hills, Deregulating Telecoms, p. 50.
87 Ibid., p. 62.
88 Also; of course, a telephone transmission could use terrestrial facilities
for one way of its communication.
89 Tunstall, Communications Deregulation, p. 72.
90 These opponents often cited IBM's strategy of locking customers into its
technical standards, thereby establishing an end-to-end hardware, infor-
mation and communication monopoly. See Magnant, Domestic Satel-
lite, pp. 229-37.
91 On the cost advantages of non-terrestrial telephone services for large
business users, see Dan Schiller, Telematics and Government, p. 50.
92 In the early 1980s, publicly discussed cost estimates of establishing a
DBS system ranged from approximately US $200 million to $1 billion.
Tunstall, Communications Deregulation, p. 76.
93 Ibid., pp. 73-4.
94 Comsat's authority enabled it to secure a $400 million line of credit
from Chase Manhattan Bank despite the risky nature of the venture.