January 17, 2000

After years of promises of imminent access by consumers to high-capacity, high-speed information services, known as broadband, such pipelines are finally reaching at least some American homes; converging Internet, cable TV and telephone industries are spending billions of dollars to make broadband a reality--at an estimated construction cost of $500 to $600 a household; some 1.4 million US homes now enjoy broadband access to what was once quaintly referred to as information highway; recent merger agreement between Time Warner and America Online is seen as major concession by AOL that future of cyberspace for everyday consumers is not in phone-line modems and dialup connections on which AOL has built its 20-million-subscriber base; for all industry monentum, though, it will take years, perhaps decades, for broadband data connections to become as common in US homes as telephone lines; photo; chart comparing cable and DSL Internet connections (L)

Congress and Clinton administration are heading into battle over taxes and spending in 2001 budget, and it is likely to be magnified this year by two factors: projections that surplus is growing significantly larger relative to last year's estimates and the attention focused on fiscal politics by presidential campaign; first skirmishes will likely be over how big a surplus the nation should count on over next decade and the related issue of whether Congress and administration should formally drop spending limits that were adopted a decade ago to help deal with huge budget deficits (M)

Article on technically flawed New York State law, signed by Gov George Pataki in August 1999, that was supposed to let mentally impaired ride half-fare on buses, subways and trains, as physically handicapped and some mentally ill have for years; says law is being honored only on Long Island Railroad and Metro-North, not on buses and subways in city; holds supporters of measure say Metropolitan Transit Authority has administrative power to extend half-fare discount; says State Sens Frank Padavan and James F Brennan say they will ask Legislature to approve another amendment if necessary (M)

Old wooden barns, once the epitome of agrarian life, are vanishing from American countryside; are being replaced by metal storage buildings, which are cheaper and bigger, if short on charm; photos (M)

CIA reportedly informs senior Clinton administration officials that Iran may now be able to make a nuclear weapons, touching off a sharp debate about Iran's nuclear capacity and the CIA's ability to monitor it; evaluation is apparently not based on evidence that Iran's indigenous efforts to build a bomb have achieved a breakthrough, but rather on fact that US cannot track with great certainty the increased efforts by Iran to acquire nuclear materials technology in international black market; US has made little headway with efforts to weaken longstanding strategic relationship between Iran and Russia, which is still brimming with stockpiles of nuclear fuel and weapons related technology and has long sold sensitive nuclear and missile technology to Iran; photo (M)