While Congress passes the Tauzin-Dingell bill - World News

The controversial Tauzin-Dingell bill was passed in a vote last week in the U.S. House of Representatives. It one of several initiatives shaking up telecoms policy worldwide, indicating almost desperate attempts for regulators to kickstart broadband.

The rules on broadband are also being rewritten in Europe, as the European Commission will unveil in a new broadband strategy later this month (see story, p. 16).

According to a Commission spokesman in Brussels, information society commissioner Erkki Liikanen is still debating whether to set real targets for the number of homes to be reached by broadband or whether to indicate goals with language like "widespread."

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington, D.C. also proposed a major policy shift last month that could potentially relieve the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) from unbundling some network elements in an effort to stimulate broadband development.

Competitive operators in the U.S. were dismayed by the FCC's initiative. It is "as just as bad as Tauzin-Dingell, but it comes from the regulator," according to John Windhausen of the Association for Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS), based in Washington, D.C.

In its earlier versions, the "Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001" (HR 1542), sponsored by Representatives Billy Tauzin and John Dingell, would have freed incumbent operators from requirements to unbundle and resell high-speed data services.

The RBOCs have lobbied hard for this bill because, they say, current regulations prevent them from rolling out broadband.

"[The bill] will give us the opportunity to invest more in our networks so that we can roll out high-speed data services more quickly." said John Goodman, Washington, D.C.-based assistant general counsel for Verizon Communications, headquartered in New York.

Verizon maintains that they are not simply trying to alleviate their regulatory burden.

"As amended, it is not a rolling back of access to our facilities," said Goodman.

Competitive operators say initiatives like the Tauzin-Dingell bill and the FCC's proposal would harm competition rather than promote broadband development.

"We think [the Tauzin-Dingell bill] would allow the Bells to extend their monopoly over phone calls and Internet access," said a WorldCom spokeswoman. "Our hope is that it doesn't pass in the Senate."

And while the Tauzin-Dingell bill was approved overwhelmingly in the House, it is widely believed that the bill will not pass in the Senate. Senator Ernest F. Hollings, who is the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, where the bill will be reviewed, has made his strong opposition to the bill well known, recently referring to it as "blasphemous."

But even if there is no immediate legislative threat from Tauzin-Dingell being passed, ALTS' Windhausen is concerned about the message that last week's vote in the House will send to the FCC.

"We still have to work it, but our members don't have to worry about it becoming law," he said.

COPYRIGHT 2002 EMAP Media Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group