the Bell companies. AT&T knew that their initial comments on the TCI merger were simply throat clearing. The Bells did not realisti- cally expect anyone to equate the simple announcement of the AT&T/ TCI merger with actual competition in their local markets. Besides, the Bells had already worn the FCC down and were beginning to win permission to offer long-distance service state by state. That war was over; AT&T was simply fighting a rear-guard delaying action. How- ever, since TCI's owned and affiliated systems reached only about a third of the country at most, AT&T would need access to the Bell net- works in the rest of the country. Protecting that access, under the terms set by the Telecom Act, was the company's key political goal Don't Confuse Politics and Public Relations and one of the major themes in Armstrong's testimony before the Senate subcommittee. The Bells Attack But the Bells saw their opening. AOL's campaign to "open the net" underlined how much Internet users coveted high-speed Internet ac- cess. Because cable companies were still deploying the systems to offer it, many areas had no high-speed service, creating the impres- sion that demand outstripped supply. The Bells had a competing tech- nology that could equip ordinary telephone wires to carry high-speed data, but it required huge investments and they were required by the Telecom Act to give other providers access to it. Taking a page from AT&T's playbook, beginning in 1998, they descended on Capitol Hill to push for changes in the Telecom Act that would free them from having to share their networks on the grounds that it inhibited them from deploying broadband technology. Two long-time Bell supporters, Representatives Billy Tauzin of Louisiana and John Dingell of Michigan, accommodated them by in- troducing the Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act, which would have amended the Telecom Act of 1996. The Tauzin- Dingell Bill went through several iterations in two different Con- gresses, but the Bells were determined to push it through.