Primetime for Telecom Reform on Hill

[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
Cable will pay close attention to at least three issues as Congress gears up to overhaul the Telecommunications Act of 1996: universal service, network neutrality, and video franchising. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications (Commerce) is expected to advance a bill not long after the House returns from its midterm recess Jan. 31. Many features of the draft bill are favorable to Verizon and AT&T (formerly SBC Communications), especially in the area of providing video competition to cable without needing local franchises. The Senate, by contrast, is on a different timetable. The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled 14 hearings over 10 days, beginning this Thursday and concluding March 14. The ground to be covered includes cable’s three key concerns in addition to Internet pornography, municipal provision of broadband access, VoIP regulation, and TV program indecency. Both House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) are eager to advance legislation, though House and Senate leaders have not identified telecommunications reform as a 2006 legislative priority. The buzz surrounding telecommunications legislation isn't necessarily indicative that President Bush will sign a bill into law this year. The 1996 telecom law was considered a 12-year project, dating to the effective date of the consent decree that broke up the old AT&T monopoly.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6299441.html?display=Policy
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