The piecemeal approach to a rewrite of the ’96 Telecom Act took a controversial turn with the proposal of the Communications, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006 in late March. The work of House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Bobby Rush, D-Ill., the bill makes way for a national video franchising process; allows governments to enter the broadband business; and imposes E911 capabilities on all Internet telephony services. But those clauses did not snare as much attention during the bill’s initial hearing on March 30 as the two-page statement on so-called “broadband policy enforcement,” otherwise referred to as net neutrality. The section is cloaked in such vague language industry analysts predicted it could be the proposal’s downfall.
“The term ‘competition’ means different things to different people,” writes Hance Haney, an analyst for the Discovery Institute think tank, in his blog. “It could mean the right to enter a market, or it could mean the right to succeed in a market. Under this draft, it would be up to the FCC to decide. A political agency, the FCC will usually cut the baby in half.” Haney argues that Title I of the Communications Act already gives the FCC authority to “do virtually anything,” but since that statute is stated very generally, the agency so far has acted with caution, so as to avoid appeals. “The draft would upset this careful balance,” says Haney. “...this innocuous-sounding provision in the draft is actually a big deal.”
The FCC, over the past few months, has shown a propensity for deregulation, giving Democrats and other net neutrality advocates cause for concern. They fear, if given a Congressional thumbs-up, the FCC will allow the RBOCs and ILECs to impose a “two-lane” plan on the Internet, charging applications providers such as eBay Inc. and Google Inc. extra to prioritize their traffic. A number of Republicans said during the hearing they want the marketplace, not government, to decide the fate of Internet and video competition, noting they were pleased with the Barton-Rush bill’s “thin” framework.
Democrats, on the other hand, were furious about the proposal’s vague positioning on net neutrality. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., was especially vocal about his displeasure. Markey is a ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. He said the bill “imperils the future of electronic commerce and innovation to the ‘world wide whims’ of broadband barons and ties the hands of the agency in a way that will legally prevent it from saving something very special. This committee’s attack on the Internet ‘as we know it’ will come as an unpleasant shock to the millions of Americans who depend on the Internet to surf and learn and do business and invent our way into the future.”
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said the potential law abandons the bipartisan approach of previous drafts with the lack of clarity on net neutrality.
The emphasis on net neutrality differences was not to say that the proposal of a national franchising process did not set off arguments of its own. Opponents of the idea, including cable companies, charge that telcos offering video only roll out their services to affluent areas, depriving rural, innercity and low-income people of their services.
Overall, says Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation, the Barton-Rush bill “is not doomed to failure, it’s just not an elegant solution.”
| Links |
| Discovery Institute www.discovery.org FCC www.fcc.gov House Energy and Commerce Committee http://energycommerce.house.gov Institute for Policy Innovation www.ipi.org |
