When President Clinton signs new television rules approved by Congress into law on Monday, as expected, it will mark another step forward in the evolution--make that revolution--in TV communication. It also will greatly enhance the position of racing services using satellite companies to distribute their products.
Both DirecTV, the largest of those companies, and the Dish Network, about half its size, will be able to sell local broadcast channels to their customers as part of their packages. One major Los Angeles home entertainment dealer said his company was ordering "as many dishes as we can get our hands on, and we still may run out" in anticipation of customers who have held off buying satellite because they couldn't get local channels. Both DirecTV and Dish plan to sell a package of five local channels ñ ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS -- for $5 or $6 a month, and also plan to add more than 20 cities to their distribution by early next year. Some industry observers are predicting major defections
from cable to satellite as a result, given the signal quality of satellite television and the falling prices of dishes, which have dropped from $1,000 to as low as $100 in the last four years.
While all of this is going on, AT&T, hedging its huge $120 billion investment in cable television lines and systems, is about to launch major campaigns offering wireless technology which will provide both phone and high speed Internet service. According to the Washington Post, AT&T will announce on Dec. 6 that it will string equipment from its existing cellular telephone towers, then transmit voice and data traffic to rooftop antennas connected to the telephone wiring of homes and businesses.