|
WASHINGTON -- New behind-the-scenes negotiations and the rise of a new, influential House committee chairman increase the odds that Congress may "free the RBOCs."
That's the term being used for legislation enabling ILECs to provide inter-LATA data services without first having to open their local loops to competitors. Such a bill (H.R. 2420) was sponsored in the last Congress by Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., and attracted 224 House co-sponsors.
But the bill never moved forward because of the opposition of Rep. Tom Bliley, the Energy & Commerce Committee chairman, who has since retired. Now, Tauzin chairs the committee. "The roadblock has been removed," says Ken Johnson, spokesman for Tauzin, whose committee has jurisdiction over the FCC.
Tauzin has hit the ground running in the new session with a push for the bill, arguing that a lack of broadband services in the United States "is now threatening to stifle e-commerce and our New Age economy."
In addition to--or maybe because of--Tauzin being in the driver's seat in the House, some of the telecommunications industry interest groups that opposed the Tauzin bill in 2000 are reassessing their stance. The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is one of those. Grant Seiffert, vice president of external affairs and global policy for the TIA, says, "We are committed to working with the chairman (Tauzin) on 2420."
Aiding those negotiations is a new openness on the part of Tauzin bill supporters such as the U.S. Telephone Association (USTA), the key supporter of the bill. "There may be a better way to skin the cat," notes David Bolger, spokesman for the USTA, who declines to state exactly what changes USTA would countenance. "We want to see what people's reservations are, and see if we can address them."
But the 2001 version of H.R. 2420 won't pass without a fight. On Feb. 8, a full-page ad appeared in the front section of both the Washington Post and Washington Times criticizing the four "giant" Bell companies with the slogan, "Fewer Choices. Worse Service. Higher Phone Bills."
Placed by a group calling itself "Voices for Choices," whose membership includes AT&T, WorldCom, XO Communications, the Association for Local Telecommunications Services and the Competitive Telecommunications Association (CompTel), the ad implicitly provided a rationale for opposing the Tauzin bill, which was not mentioned by name.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the ad ran the day after AT&T Chairman C. Michael Armstrong delivered a speech at the National Press Club calling for more government regulation of the Baby Bells. Armstrong also complained that the RBOCs are engaged in discriminatory pricing and other practices that might prompt AT&T to pull out of the local service market.
CompTel, which strongly opposes the Tauzin bill, says it will try to get a member of Congress to introduce a bill which increases the penalties on the ILECs for anticompetitive behavior and enhances local market access rules to provide for all broadband market entry strategies, including interconnection, resale and unbundled network elements, to really work. Pam Small, a CompTel spokeswoman, could not say who might sponsor that bill.
Even if the Tauzin bill passes the House, it would face problems in the Senate. The TIA's Seiffert notes that there is pretty strong opposition to the bill from important quarters in the Senate, for example, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to name a couple.
Johnson, Tauzin's spokesman, says the House Committee will attend to legislation that passed the committee and the House in 2000, but faltered in the Senate, before taking on the controversial Bell interLATA data bill. "We want to hit a few softballs out of the park first," he explains.
While the Tauzin bill is the highest-visibility broadband issue, it is not the only one. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., has re-introduced the bill sponsored last year by now-retired Sen. Daniel Moynihan which makes available tax credits to companies who deploy either "current generation" (worth a 10 percent credit) broadband in rural or underserved areas and "next generation" (20 percent credit) to any residential area. The bill had strong support in both the House and Senate in 2000, and will again in 2001.
The TIA's Seiffert says backers will try to attach the Rockefeller bill to whatever tax cut bill passes Congress this year.
|
