Fergie's Tech Blog

Providers Complain Telecom Bill Adds Regulations

Grant Gross writes in InfoWorld:

One of the major goals of a telecommunications reform bill in the U.S. Congress should be to ensure that all U.S. residents and businesses have access to at least three broadband Internet providers, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Wednesday.

Chairman Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, called for Congress to take a light regulatory approach on a bill aimed at broadening competition, but representatives of Internet providers suggested that a bill being promoted by Barton would add more regulations, not reduce them.

"Do you trust markets, or do you trust bureaucrats?" Barton said while calling for light regulations. "That's a basic question."

But officials with Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., both large broadband providers, said the Energy and Commerce Committee's current draft telecom reform bill would create new obligations for Internet providers to allow competing technologies on their networks where none existed before. Barton and the company officials were among the speakers at a telecom reform forum sponsored by Congressional Quarterly Inc. and Dittus Communications, a Washington, D.C., public relations firm.

posted by Fergie @ 11/16/2005 05:57:00 PM