February 14, 2000

Andrew Jay Schwartzman

President and CEO

Media Access Project

1707 L Street, N. W., Suite 400

Washington, DC 20036

Re: Public Forum on the Application for Consent to

Transfer Control of Licenses from MediaOne

[Group, Inc. to AT&T Corp., CS Docket No. 99-251]{.underline}

Dear Mr. Schwartzman:

On behalf of the Cable Services Bureau and Chairman Kennard, I want to
thank you for participating in the Bureau's Public Forum on February 4.
As always, your testimony on behalf of consumers brought a valuable
perspective to our proceedings and to the public's understanding of the
matters before us.

You raised several issues at the Public Forum, some directly related to
the subject matter of the merger, and others related to different
matters. I did not believe it was appropriate to comment on the
non-merger specific issues during the Public Forum, but I recognize the
totality of your concerns, and I would like to address them now.

First, you state that the Bureau has not acted on the complaint
contained in your October 7, 1999 letter which alleges violations by
AT&T of the horizontal ownership reporting requirements. You also state
that the complaint should be transferred to the Enforcement Bureau.
Staff has carefully reviewed the allegations set forth in your letter.
Based upon that review, your complaint has been incorporated into the
record in the AT&T/MediaOne merger proceeding, and it will be addressed
either before, or as a part of any final action on, the merger request.
Given that the complaint goes directly to the issues raised by the
merger, it is more appropriately handled by the Cable Services Bureau,
rather than the Enforcement Bureau, as part of our Bureau's review.

Second, you recommended that the Commission should seek comment on the
impact of the proposed merger of AOL and Time Warner on the
AT&T-MediaOne merger. At the time of the Public Forum, there was no such
record before us. However, on Friday, February 11, AOL-Time Warner filed
for merger review, and we will be assessing the cumulative impact of the
two mergers.

Third, you stated that AT&T's proposal to waive the horizontal ownership
and attribution rules was "devious", and you questioned the Bureau's
treatment of that proposal. In response to the AT&T proposal, Consumers
Union, *et al.,* SBC Communications, Inc., and

US West, Inc. requested a new pleading cycle to respond to the waiver
proposal. Since the public did not have an opportunity to comment on the
AT&T proposal, the Cable Services Bureau agreed to establish an extended
comment period in which interested persons could respond to the AT&T
request. That period permitted replies through January 27, 2000.

Fourth, you have raised questions about the Bureau's "neutrality" and
specifically have stated that all comments are not entered directly on
the Commission's web page. In fact, the Bureau established the merger
web page to promote the availability of information and to simplify
public access to the AT&T/MediaOne merger record. It serves those
purposes well. Our resources do not permit every document to be placed
on that page. For example, the application itself is not on the web
page. Instead, it is accessible through the Commission's Electronic
Comment Filing System (ECFS) where the entire record is available. There
is a link between the merger page and the ECFS that has been in
existence since the page was created. We have endeavored to provide
public access to all of the major pleadings by posting them on the
merger web page. But the entire record is readily available to the
public via ECFS.

Finally, you questioned our designation of the AT&T/MediaOne proceeding
as "permit-but-disclose." When you raised this issue earlier, we
responded by letter on November 24, 1999, that the designation of
proceedings such as the AT&T/MediaOne proceeding as
"permit-but-disclose" is intended to make our process as open and
transparent as possible, while also allowing parties and Commission
staff to operate efficiently. The permit-but-disclose process allows
individual parties to make presentations to staff as long as the
substance of those presentations is described in a written submission,
which then becomes a part of the record. These filings are accessible to
all interested parties through the Commission's public reference room
and on the Internet through ECFS. The permit-but-disclose procedures in
this proceeding are identical to the procedures used in other Commission
proceedings, including other merger reviews. We believe these procedures
are fair and efficient and they ensure easy access to the record for all
interested parties.

We appreciate your ongoing participation in this proceeding, and as you
know, my door, and that of the Bureau staff, is always open to you and
to any other interested party to discuss these matters.

Sincerely,

> Deborah A. Lathen

#  Chief

> Cable Services Bureau