House panel probes telecommunications competition in effort to broaden high-speed Internet access

By Ian Christopher McCaleb/CNN

July 18, 2000
Web posted at: 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House Judiciary Committee considered Tuesday the complicated communications web woven across the United States by a myriad of competing telecommunications companies -- and how their fierce competition, coupled with legislative and regulatory constraints, may be preventing consumers from accessing high-speed data services.

The panel convened to hash out the details of two pending bills that further aim to open Internet access to those who may only be able to dial into their internet service providers (ISPs) with low- to medium speed modems, while keeping a close eye on the creation of anti-competitive contracts by high-speed service providers, and ensuring that private user data stays private.

The bills, dubbed by their bipartisan creators the "Internet Growth and Development Act" and the "Internet Freedom Act," were drafted, panel members said Tuesday, to ensure that Internet services are kept open to fair competition.

But many committee members, and several witnesses, each had their own ideas as to what "fair competition" might mean, and which of the current corporate players might now be acting in bad faith, blocking young upstarts from entering the telecommunications marketplace.

Rep. Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican who has been active in communications legislation since the GOP took control of Congress six years ago, told the committee Tuesday morning that the telephone companies need to absorb some of the blame for the so-called digital divide, and argued that old laws must be wiped off the books to create an atmosphere of true competition.

Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Louisiana

Making an example of data communications networks in his home state, Tauzin said broadband hubs are accessible to residents of the New Orleans and Baton Rouge metropolitan areas, leaving vast portions of the state sorely lacking for high speed data services -- such as DSL. The lack exists despite the fact that almost all of Louisiana has enough of an underground fiber optic network to support such services, he said.

The Communications Act of 1996, Tauzin argued, created a repressive atmosphere for companies in states such as Louisiana -- companies that want to offer wide access to broadband data services, but cannot.

"Let us take the government walls down that are creating this digital divide," Tauzin, chairman of the House Commerce Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee, said in testimony before the Judiciary Committee.

The regional Bell operating companies -- the companies created by the breakup of AT&T in the 1980s -- Tauzin said, now benefit from lines of demarcation across many states that determine local and long distance voice calling zones. Tolls charged to cross those zones, in turn, make the provision of broadband services cost-prohibitive for many companies that wish to expand their footprints, and for residents, schools and libraries that crave broadband access.

Tauzin insisted that the 1996 Act -- the first major re-write of national telecommunications law since 1994 -- could not have envisioned the explosion of the Internet, and was geared to favor the telephone companies.

"The Act wasn't about the Internet, it was about telephone service, plain old voice service," he said. "Are we going to keep barriers in place that were designed for the telephone age?"

Other witnesses argued that while Tauzin may have a point, the explosive changes seen in the course of the last four years in the communications industry indicate that a sector-wide settling may be a long way off, and no legislative or regulatory changes should be enacted.

FCC Commissioner William Kennard testified that the 1996 Act "is working," and should be allowed to continue to work, because it contains incentives for the Bell companies to open their networks to broadband providers and other competitors. If they do so on a broad scale, Kennard said, they will be rewarded with allowances to provide long distance telephone service -- something they have clamored for since AT&T was disbanded.

FCC Commissioner William Kennard

"Broadband deployment is exploding today," Kennard said. "The marketplace is scrambling to roll out broadband for Internet access."

The telephone companies, Kennard said, are encouraged under the 1996 legislation to "unbundle" their facilities and services in a manner that will allow other companies to offer high-speed services over their fiber optic networks.

One of the two bills under consideration by the committee would require the telephone companies to submit a detailed plan to their state's regulatory agencies outlining how and when they would open their networks to broadband providers. That plan would have to be submitted within 180 days of the bill's enactment.

"The paradigm proposed in [these bills] is not the appropriate paradigm," Kennard said, adding that this debate would likely continue until the cable television companies -- long a target of regulators and legislators for continually rising cable rates -- create a uniform network of their own for high speed services.

"This is not a fight over one wire, this is a fight about creating multiple platforms," he said.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-California, whose district is home to a number of communications and computing concerns, agreed with Kennard, saying no standing laws should be changed at present because "we will see more and more of an integration of the communications and computer industries."