The National Journal’s David Hatch has this item that says the upcoming House telecom reform bill will not have net neutrality provisions. To the probable dismay of Internet giants such as Yahoo and Google that have been pressing for the inclusion of net neutrality rules in the House bill, Energy and Commerce Committee staffers contend that there isn’t enough time to reach a consensus on these controversial provisions.
The bill also won’t address municipal broadband or interconnection issues, but will focus mainly on streamlining the franchising process, according to the chatter. However, as Hatch points out, everything is still in flux and the legislative process is totally unpredictable. (It’s even possible that the staffers talking to Hatch are merely trying to bolster support for net neutrality, or mobilize the net neutrality advocates to work harder, by creating a scare that these kinds of provisions aren’t in the bill.)
Without a net neutrality provision in the House bill, however, it’s unlikely that ultimate telecom reform legislation would have any network neutrality provisions — the conference version of the Senate and House bills, which would seek to reconcile differences between the two pieces of legislation, would likely omit net neutrality as a point of disagreement between the two bodies.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:12 AM|Comments(0)
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