Verizon proposes wholesale rewrite of US telecom law

Verizon just put out a press release titled "Congress Needs to Update the Nation's Antiquated and Anti-Competitive Telecom Rules."

Verizon public policy VP Tom Tauke straight-up says that the government should completely rewrite the Telecommunications Act, and give a single federal agency "clear jurisdiction" to enforce the law on a case-by-case basis. That's a direct shot at the Federal Communications Commission, which lost the Comcast BitTorrent case when the court ruled it didn't have the power to enforce network neutrality, and then provoked the ire of both industry and Congress alike when it tried to reclassify Internet communications in a way that gave it the power it needed. That's also way beyond the joint Google / Verizon net neutrality proposal from August -- Verizon's gone from suggesting that the FCC make some policy tweaks to demanding that Congress start over with the law that governs the FCC itself, which is something like the difference between a screwdriver and a sledgehammer.