Lawmakers and CLECs Launch Defense of ‘96 Telecom Act, Virtues of Competition
Lawmakers and CLEC executives offered a robust defense of the Telecom Act of 1996 and made the case for competition Wednesday during a Library of Congress event. The Broadband Coalition hosted the speakers, with Comptel CEO Chip Pickering, a former Republican congressman from Mississippi who helped author the 1996 act, coordinating and framing the event as a fight that he and others are only now beginning in earnest. The campaign comes as House Republicans push to overhaul the 1996 act and as several proposed telecom and media acquisitions face scrutiny from lawmakers, the FCC and the Justice Department.
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"The 1996 act is the future today,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told the crowd, describing his role as a House lawmaker in writing the legislation. “The 1996 act is the future tomorrow.” Markey noted there have recently been “critics” of what he emphasized is a technology-neutral act -- critics who suggest it was written for old networks and old rules. “But if it was just a bill about the old phone network, we would have held the signing in front of a phone booth.” President Bill Clinton signed the act in the Library of Congress with a digital pen that Markey now possesses, he explained. The tenets of the 1996 act are “as relevant and vital today” as ever, even with big changes like the IP transition looming, Markey said.
"This is just the start,” Pickering declared, lamenting the powers of “protectionism” or “cronyism,” and expressing his plan to re-establish a bipartisan coalition reflecting CompTel’s values. “The stakes are high.” Motivating the campaign is a combination of the possible Telecom Act rewrite, pending consolidation proposals and current FCC proceedings, a Comptel spokeswoman told us.
Lawmakers emphasized the power of competition and the risks of market consolidation. “When you have competition, it solves a lot of other problems,” Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said. A “one-size-fits-all” approach from Washington doesn’t make sense and “rural gets left behind,” which is “really bad for the country,” Pryor said. The IP transition “gives us an opportunity to get some things right,” Pryor added, pointing to what many would say is a welcome “hands-on, aggressive FCC.” Pryor cautioned against sacrificing “getting it right for getting things done quickly” and mentioned talks with the agency nearly daily. Pryor has indicated he is not interested in engaging in the process of overhauling the Communications Act this year.
It’s “the smaller companies who are historically the innovators, not the broadband behemoths,” Markey said. He warned of the “cozy cooperation of communications colossi” that hurts consumers. The 1996 act created and “sustains” competition, Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman said. “There’s consolidation all over the place that threatens these things. ... Competition is hard. Competition isn’t easy.”
"The Communications Act should be our lodestar,” said Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner and now special adviser to Common Cause. Copps slammed what he sees as “merger madness” happening now and said between that and decisions about net neutrality protections, democracy depends on what happens between now and the end of the year. “We need to get serious about broadband, we need to get serious about competition, we need to get serious about our country.”
"Competition is the answer, and it’s just as true today if not more true than it ever was” given all the proposed consolidation, said Thomas Bliley, former Republican House Commerce Committee chairman from Virginia when the 1996 act was passed. “I really believe the foundation of the act was competition.” John Shadegg, a former Republican representative from Arizona and ex-chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said this message “appeals to conservatives like me” as well as more broadly. Incumbent industry players “trot out the old arguments again” about deregulation, but “think about the context in which they make those arguments,” Shadegg said. “They don’t like competition.” That line of thinking is “simply wrong” and the right rules and regulations that promote competition are “exactly what we need,” he remarked. “This is an exciting fight to be in.”
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., emphasized the importance of getting broadband connectivity to rural America. “We did it with electricity,” said Welch, co-chair of the Rural Telecommunications Working Group. “For us this is a matter of economic survival.”
Pickering hammered home his message by presenting a bevy of executives from CLECs Rural Health Telecom, TDS Telecom, tw telecom, TSI and XO Communications speaking of the virtues of competition and what their service means to customers. “Competition needs to continue to be in place,” XO CEO Chris Ancell said. Several executives mentioned the importance of interconnection and access to allowing this competition. Some executives allowed their customers to speak or showcased videos about the service.
As part of the effort, Pickering announced a new website the Broadband Coalition created, titled Customers for Competition (http://bit.ly/1iazReu). It includes several video testimonials about the coalition member companies and criticizes incumbent telcos. “This is going to be a growing, emerging story and coalition,” Pickering said.