IP Democracy: Must-Read: Clash of the High-Tech Titans

The National Journal’s Bara Vaida has an excellent run-down of the state-of-play in the complex process of drafting new telecom legislation. The article highlights the growing lobbying war between phone companies and cable operators and recaps a few of the eleven pieces of telecom reform legislation introduced so far.

A rewrite of the 1996 Telecom Act opens up the horse-trading process to everybody in the communications business, from broadcasters to Amazon.com. Powerful Senate Commerce Committee leader Ted Stevens (R-AK) is biding his time, and won’t debut his own legislative initiative until 2006. With the big, messy issues and powerful companies involved, we’re not going to see a bill pass for a long time. Let’s hear it for the Telecom Reform Act of….2010?

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on September 29, 2005 7:17 AM to IP Democracy