Content area
Full Text
NYNEX Corp. is trying to ride a motorscooter onto the information superhighway.
Bell Atlantic Corp.'s proposed $33 billion acquisition of cable television giant TeleCommunications Inc., coupled with bold moves by other regional phone companies, makes NYNEX's hesitant moves at phone-cable interactivity look timid indeed.
The company argues that its $1.2 billion investment in Viacom Inc. positions it for participation in the vaunted information superhighway--that conflux of wire and cable that will allow consumers access to phone, shopping, video, news and other services in their homes.
But the daring of Bell Atlantic's move and NYNEX's past track record of wading cautiously into new markets or blundering when it did, suggests that NYNEX could find itself in the slow lane of the race to provide sophisticated interactive telecommunications and entertainment to customers.
"We are in the capitalization phase (of the information superhighway) right now, and NYNEX isn't doing anything specifically related to it," says Joshua Harris, president of Jupiter Communications Inc.
Even before Bell Atlantic's proposed merger with TCI, NYNEX saw its sister regional phone companies take the lead in developing alliances that capitalize on new technological trends. Last week, BellSouth Corp. announced that it agreed in principle to buy 22.5% of a Texas-based cable operator. Earlier this year, U.S. West forged an alliance with Time Warner Inc.
NYNEX INVESTED IN VIACOM
NYNEX, the...