Staffers Predict House Will Pass Telecom Bill
The House will pass a telecom bill this year, although agreement has yet to be reached on sticky issues such as net neutrality, Commerce Committee aides told an FCBA lunch Fri. The legislation will be “market-based and market-driven,” said Howard Waltzman, the committee’s majority chief telecom counsel: “We're going to rely on the market to regulate these services and not have a heavy hand in govt. regulation. That’s what’s going to drive this legislation.”
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Discussions with ranking member Dingell (D-Mich.) have gone “very well” in recent weeks, Waltzman said. But net neutrality isn’t an easy issue to resolve, discussions with panelists revealed. Chris Putala, exec. vp- EarthLink, said consumers deserve to choose where to go once they pay for high-speed access to the Internet, and shouldn’t be subject to the discretion of network operators. “If we allow network operators to decide which businesses consumers can go to, it will be a fundamental change in the nature of the Internet,” he said. “No one has any problem with tiering,” which would let an operator set priorities on its network. But consumers should have the freedom to go where they want, Putala said.
To Waltzman, this amounts to turning broadband pipes into railroads and regulating them under common carriage. “I can’t think of anything that would chill investment more,” he said. People take for granted the billion- dollar investment that companies have made in wireline and wireless infrastructure, and are seeking to recover by offering new services to consumers, Waltzman said: “The reason the Internet has thrived is because it’s existed in an unregulated environment. Regulating… under common carriage would be a complete step backward for the Internet.”
Govt. should stay out of deciding network neutrality, Waltzman said: “Government is not going to get this right. It’s not going to do this in a way that’s in the best interest of the market.” If a network operator starts shutting out a Google or EarthLink, consumers will leave for a competitor, he said: “The solution to concerns about network neutrality is that people are going to vote with their feet and they're going to go to a different network if the network is blocking or degrading access to content they want.” But Amy Levine, legislative counsel for Rep. Boucher (D-Va.), pointed out that competitive options are limited for many consumers. “A lot of those options haven’t been deployed widely enough to be viable competition,” she said.
Rep. Boucher is concerned that charging different access prices to get on the Internet will change its character, Levine said. “Given that the Internet is about consumers, what does it mean if a network says you can get to ‘x’ site faster if a consumer wants to go to ‘y’ site faster,” she said: “It really will change the fundamental nature of the Internet if we let network operators decide where people can get to faster or slower.” She also stressed that lawmakers need to keep in mind the “consumer-based nature of the Internet” when drafting legislation.
While Congress is grappling with terms of debate, companies are moving forward with their business plans, said Melissa Newman, Qwest vp-regulatory affairs. The priorities that should be addressed in the telecom bill are rules governing the Bells’ entry into video and reform of the universal service fund (USF), she said. Putala said the key issues for EarthLink are resolving net neutrality, adding a provision for stand-alone DSL services, 911 liability and interconnection rights. “It would be easier if things were clarified” with legislation, Newman said, but business will go on regardless.