Senate Commerce Committee member James DeMint (R-SC) has introduced yet another telecom reform bill to add to the pile of proposals on Capitol Hill. DeMint’s bill, called the Digital Communications Act of 2005 (better hurry and pass that one before the New Year), is, in the words of pro-industry group The Progress and Freedom Foundation, “a market oriented, competition based regulatory approach, replacing the techno-functional constructs that have historically characterized telecommunications regulation.”
The bill very much favors a free-market approach to telecom policy and tilts toward an antitrust model of regulation, where regulatory intervention would occur only post-fact, i.e. only after a problem has occurred, as opposed to “anticipatory overly broad prescriptive rulemaking.” This is of course a shot at net neutrality, which broadband providers say is a solution in search of a problem.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:36 PM | Print | Comments (0)
The major consumer and business news outlets are now on the network neutrality case. The latest evidence: this Business Week.com piece by Catherine Yang that leads off with the fears of Google, Amazon and eBay regarding the ability of cable operators and phone companies to thwart their business plans by blocking or interfering with network access.
That prospect is the worst nightmare of Internet stars such as Google (GOOG) , Amazon (AMZN), and eBay (EBAY). They’re gearing up for a clash with the phone and cable giants early next year as Congress begins to redraft the telecom laws for the broadband era. The Internet gang fears that unless they get lawmakers to intervene, the network operators will soon be able to put a chokehold on the Web. “The issue is about the future of the Internet,” says Alan Davidson, Google’s Washington policy counsel.
Not much is new here, but it’s interesting to note that Alabama-based telco Madison River’s decision to block Vonage phone calls is cited, as it always is, as proof that broadband providers will mickey with competitors. Without Madison River, and a few European telcos (and of course Ed Whitacre’s and Bill Smith’s statements), no real-world evidence exists that network neutrality is needed, something that the telcos and the cable operators frequently note. As NCTA Legal VP Dan Brenner says in the piece “network neutrality is a solution in search of a problem.” That may be so, but the concept is gaining momentum and with foes like Google, Yahoo and Amazon, it’s going to be tought for telcos and cable operators to fend off some kind of net neutrality requirements.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:32 AM | Print | Comments (3)
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