Big payoff for high-tech gambler

Article Abstract:

AT&T's acquisition of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc will make its Chmn Craig O. McCaw a billionaire, despite the fact that the company is $4.9 billion in debt and has yet to post a profit. The 44-year-old McCaw chairman bet those billions to bring his vision of a wireless telephone network spanning the country to fruition; he built it, and AT&T came to buy it. Craig began his career in 1969 by inheriting, together with brothers John, Keith and Bruce, a small, 4,000-subscriber cable television system from his father, which young Craig ran from his Stanford University dorm room. Craig managed the family cable business so well that it grew to 450,000 subscribers by 1987, when Jack Kent Cooke bought it for $755 million. A matured McCaw decided that cellular was the future, and he stormed the country acquiring licenses. Though pained at parting from his company, McCaw takes comfort that he is following Mark Twain's advice to astonish lots of people.

Electronic computers, Radiotelephone communications, Television broadcasting stations, Mergers, acquisitions and divestments, Finance, Corporate directors, Cellular telephone services industry, Cellular telephone services, T, Leadership, American Telephone and Telegraph Co., Personal finance software, AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Financial Analysis Software, Careers, Cellular Radio, Acquisition, Chairmen, MCWA, McCaw, Craig O.

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Phone industry asks control of a high-speed network

Article Abstract:

The telephone industry, in a rare display of unity, issues a policy statement asking President Clinton to allow private companies to build and manage the proposed fiber optic data network. The statement also requested government subsidies for the building of the network and supported the concept of 'production networks' that will be available to a broad range of users. Chief executive officers of local and long-distance telephone companies, such as AT&T, MCI Communications, Sprint and the regional Bell companies, signed the statement. The telephone industry's move is intended to ensure that its business will not be taken over by government. The Clinton administration's proposed nationwide information infrastructure has worried the telephone companies because a government-built network will offer services to the public at prices lower than the industry can offer.

Telecommunications services industry, Telecommunications industry, Political activity, Telephone companies, Clinton, Bill, Science and technology policy, Fiber optics, Activism, Political protest, Lobbying, Networks, Proposal, National Government, Telephone Company, Political Issue

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