House Passes Broadband Access Bill
WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday approved a controversial measure that frees the regional Bell telephone companies from having to share their high-speed data wires with rivals--a reform backers say will encourage the phone giants to more aggressively roll out faster Internet access.
The 273-157 vote approving the Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001 was a victory for the so-called Baby Bells, which argued that expanding high-speed Internet access, or broadband, will help boost the recovering U.S. economy and enable consumers and businesses to watch videos online, download large files or even undergo data-intensive medical diagnoses.
“With this vote today, House members took a giant step forward toward economic recovery, increased innovation and expanded consumer choice,” said Walter B. McCormick Jr., president of the U.S. Telecom Assn., whose members include the four Baby Bells and about 1,400 other local phone carriers.
McCormick added that House passage of the bill moves the Bells--comprising BellSouth Corp., Qwest Communications International Inc., SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.--one step closer to leveling the playing field with cable TV companies, which serve about 70% of the nation’s nearly 10million broadband subscribers.
Despite its wide margin of approval in the House, the broadband bill--which was co-authored by Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.) and Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.)--faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) has decried the measure as “blasphemy.”
“If Tauzin-Dingell passes, you will have an unregulated monopoly,” said Hollings during a news conference Wednesday.
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Conrad R. Burns (R-Mont.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) also are siding with upstart phone rivals such as Allegiance Telecom Inc. and long-distance carriers such as WorldCom Inc. and AT&T; Corp. in opposing the broadband measure. They accuse the Bells of seeking the legislation in order to dominate broadband the way they do local phone service.
The broadband bill would remove requirements in the 1996 Telecommunications Act that the Baby Bells first share their networks on a nondiscriminatory basis with competitors before being allowed to offer high-speed Internet service nationwide.
The bill, which passed the House with fewer votes than supporters had predicted a few weeks ago, also would bar the Federal Communications Commission and state public utility commissions from regulating “the rates, terms or conditions” of broadband service.
Although no law bars the regional Bells from offering high-speed Internet access, the phone giants say they have been reluctant to invest the estimated $200 billion it would take to bring broadband to most Americans’ doorsteps because current federal rules require them to offer their facilities to rivals at what they say is an unprofitable “wholesale” cost.
The House broadband measure has been the subject of intense lobbying. AT&T;, Sprint and WorldCom, which fought to defeat the legislation, have contributed a total of $12.6 million to federal candidates and their parties since 1999. The Baby Bells gave $19.4 million in contributions over the same period.
As of June, there were nearly 10million high-speed Internet subscribers in the U.S., up 36% since the beginning of 2001 and 250% from the year before.
With the Senate unlikely to embrace the House broadband measure, opponents say they will turn their attention to the FCC, which announced this month that it was considering a proposal to deregulate high-speed Internet in a manner similar to the House bill.
“Our next big battleground is the FCC, where Chairman [Michael K.] Powell has teed up a lot of the same issues as” the House broadband bill, said John Windhausen Jr., president of the Assn. for Local Telecommunications Services, a Washington trade group that represents about 65 companies competing with the Bells to provide broadband.
