FORMER FCC CHIEF; CABLE AND WEB REACHING CONVERGENCE

Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who is now president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, has voiced the opinion that cable and the Internet are converging and will eventually become one and the same. In an interview due to air on C-SPAN this weekend, Powell said, “A pipe is a pipe now; data is data.” He observed that cable operators are adjusting to what he called “the 21st century architecture” in which television is merely another app on TV screens. Cable companies are becoming the nation’s primary broadband providers. Moreover, he said, wireless technology will eventually be able to link all the digital machinery in the home from the personal computer, to the thermostat, to the TV set. “I think any industry in the information space has to be working on a wireless strategy,” he said.