FCC's Sallet Cites Gore Role in Telecom Act

Federal Communications Commission General Counsel Jon Sallet, a former Commerce Department official and communications policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore at the time the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was being drafted, talked about a Gore theory of Internet choke points: "Vice President Gore observed that '[for] some time, in many places, there are likely to be only one or two broadband, interactive wires, probably owned by cable or telephone companies.' And then the Vice President said: 'We cannot permit the creation of information bottlenecks that adversely affect information providers who use the highways as a means of supplying their customers. Nor can we can permit bottlenecks for information consumers who desire programming that may not be available through the wires that enter their homes or offices.'"

Sallet said that the Vice President's principles "were sound in 1994 and are, in my view, equally sound today." Sallet did suggest that edge providers and ISPs are not easily stovepiped for the purposes of regulation, something cable operators have also pointed out when arguing that those edge providers have escaped what they see as the FCC's heavy hand.