The Internet tax moratorium should get only a temporary extension “if at all,” Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Inouye (D-Hawaii) said Wed. at a hearing to discuss action before the Nov. 1 expiration. He and other Senate Democrats are wary of making the moratorium permanent for fear of robbing states and localities of potential tax revenue as e-commerce grows. Vice Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) argued for a permanent ban.
Congress is beginning work on the 5-year rewrite of the farm bill, a process that already has lawmakers drafting their own measures to fix the long-troubled rural broadband loan program. Mon., Sen. Roberts (R-Kan.) introduced S-1439 with co-sponsor Sen. Salazar (D-Colo.); the bill would create incentives for investment and simplify the loan process in rural areas. The bill also would redefine “rural,” helping to target so geographically small regions of the country that aren’t getting broadband services, according to a statement.
Communications providers said Thurs. they support a national broadband census, but they disagreed with methodology in a draft bill the Telecom Subcommittee is circulating for consideration. The bill, by Subcommittee Chmn. Markey (D-Mass.), would amend the FCC’s definition of high-speed services, now 200 kbps, to 2 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. At a hearing Thurs., several witnesses said that would skew data collection.
The cable industry nearly doubled its lobbying outlay last year. Much of that went to fight the telecom franchising bill -- a cause it won indirectly when the bill withered due to lack of political interest. NCTA spent $14 million on lobbying in 2006, compared with just over $7 million in 2004, according to documents filed with the Secy. of the Senate. AT&T was the big communications industry spender in 2006.
The House Telecom Subcommittee has identified the witnesses for its Thurs. hearing on broadband “mapping,” which seeks to paint a detailed picture of broadband providers in a region. Invited speakers are Communications Workers of America Pres. Larry Cohen, USTelecom Pres. Walter McCormick, CTIA Pres. Steve Largent, NCTA Pres. Kyle McSlarrow, FreePress Policy Dir. Ben Scott, ConnectKentucky Pres. Brian Mefford, and George Ford, Phoenix Center chief economist.
The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) released a long- awaited proposal to improve its broadband lending program by barring applicants seeking to serve areas with significant existing broadband coverage and easing equity demands of providers wanting to serve areas with little broadband access. But critics questioned whether the changes go far enough to target rural areas with little or no access to broadband services.
Democrats are scrambling to fill broadband gaps in rural America, with House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Markey (D- Mass.) drafting a bill based partly on a successful state program that mapped high-speed service holes. Markey’s bill would have NTIA draw and maintain the map, to be posted on the Internet and searchable by users, according to a copy of the discussion draft. A hearing on the bill is set next Thurs.
From rules on circumventing encryption to backdoor protections for Internet transmissions, the latest “non-paper” from the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright & Related Rights (CD May 3 p7) takes the wrong “approach” entirely, instead of simply going beyond an appropriate “level” for protections of broadcast signals, several critics told a Copyright Office roundtable Wed. NAB Senior Assoc. Gen. Counsel Ben Ivins again found himself arguing against an entire room on the treaty (CD Jan 4 p5). He reiterated his call for details on the “parade of horribles” offered by critics from consumer groups to tech titans and carriers.
Claims that a cap on wireless universal service recipients wouldn’t be competitively neutral “ring hollow” because wireline LECs have had caps in the past, USTelecom Pres. Walter McCormick told the FCC in a letter. “Universal service caps are not new,” he said in response to concerns voiced about a recommendation by the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service (CD May 3 p1). “Almost a decade ago, the Commission established an indexed limit on the high- cost fund for ETCs [eligible telecom carriers] and capped the amount of corporate operations expense that an ETC could recover” through USF payments, he said. As now, the action was taken to “prevent excessive growth in the size of the universal service fund,” McCormick said, and the cap was upheld by the 5th U.S. Appeals Court, New Orleans. “Unlike the high-cost fund for incumbent ETCs, the universal service support available to competitive ETCs has never been capped,” McCormick said.
Members of Congress criticized the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Tues. for not targeting underserved areas for broadband loans, saying the govt. shouldn’t be subsidizing new providers in areas that have broadband services. RUS Administrator Jim Andrew said RUS can’t survey the country to determine which rural areas are underserved. RUS considered a “mapping” project, but “by the time it was done it would be obsolete,” Andrew said at a hearing by a subcommittee of the House Agriculture Committee.