Telcos Criticize Barton Bill’s Franchising Provisions

You may not know this, but you have until September 28 to send your comments to the House Commerce Committee on proposed, but as yet introduced, legislation aimed at reforming US telecommunications law. Apparently, large telephone companies already got the word and are visiting Hill staff and complaining about the draft bill's franchising provisions. Parts of the draft threaten to “deny consumers of many of the benefits that today’s technology and marketplace can deliver,” Verizon Exec. Vp Tom Tauke said Wednesday at a Progress & Freedom Foundation conference. And, let's face it, we're all about consumers. One passage essentially would mandate a
redesign of the set-top box for Verizon’s new video service that launches today Thursday, he said. Tauke also questioned placeholder provisions on build-out requirements. He'd like to see a Federal Trade Commission model of regulation because the FTC doesn't try to set rules shaping a market’s development. Speaking at the same event, Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said that any net neutrality requirements would entail "massive regulation" and mounds of paperwork. She hasn't heard anyone champion sweeping rewrite like 1996's Telecom Act, but "the notion that consumers should be able to go where they want to go on the Internet, attach the equipment they want to attach without restriction or degradation" should be paramount.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes, Anne Veigle]
(Not available online)

* Verizon Critical of House Telecom Draft
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6258923.html?display=Breaking+News

* Verizon Exec Knocks House Telecom Bill
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-USVF1127346400334.html

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