Groups urge FCC to treat broadband as telecom service
Submitted: June 10, 2009 - 8:37pm
Originally published: June 10, 2009
Last updated: June 10, 2009 - 8:37pm
Originally published: June 10, 2009
Last updated: June 10, 2009 - 8:37pm
Source:
CongressDaily
Author:
David Hatch
Consumer advocates are urging the Federal Communications Commission to reclassify high-speed Internet access as a telecommunications service, a major change that would have sweeping implications for cable and phone providers of broadband. Telecommunications offerings are more heavily regulated, which can mean price controls, allowing competitors access to infrastructure and tighter control of network architecture. Since telecom carriers must permit nondiscriminatory access to their infrastructure, they would likely have to meet the requirement through strict adherence to network neutrality restrictions, explained Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America. The FCC's net neutrality guidelines were introduced as voluntary, though the agency insists it can enforce them.
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Those of us who are either in the "non-telephony based broadband" business or about to get in said business have repeatedly not done a good job of separating ourselves from our "copper and electricity dial tone providers", the telecommunications providers.
We transmit data. Period. It could be entertainment data, as with the cable companies, or true voice over IP. But in the future that "data" will be medical records, telemedicine, telemonitoring images for those medical patients sent home, but still under a Doctor's supervision. It will be more financial data, educational data, video of the "grand kids/grandmother" data and the list goes on and on as to what type of information will be "digitized into trillions and trillions of "data packets".
So, do you really want that regulated? Do you want private networks clogged with analogy phone calls and such. Not you really want this to stay lightly regulated or even not regulated, because there now will be to much at stake to be trying to conform to the regulatory requirements of the FCC as they relate to telephony.
Also, wakeup. In many states around the United States, Telephone Providers have become completely deregulated by by the state Public Service Commissions.
Give this desire to regulate data transmission another thought.