Senate Commerce Committee leadership is being pressed to hold hea...

Senate Commerce Committee leadership is being pressed to hold hearings on FCC’s tentative decision to reclassify wireline broadband services as information services. Commission said last week that designating “telephone-based” Internet services as information rather than common carrier services could spur investment by eliminating regulatory uncertainty (CD Feb 15 p1). Agency’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on issue “may reflect a fundamental misreading of the intent and purpose” of Telecom Act, Sen. Dorgan (D-N.D.) said Feb. 15 in letter to Commerce Committee Chmn. Hollings (D-S.C.) and Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Inouye (D-Hawaii). He said he agreed with FCC Comr. Copps’s dissenting position that decision “appears to lead to the strange conclusion that Congress intended to remove these services from the numerous competition, universal service and consumer protection provisions that Congress imposed on common carriers providing telecommunications services.” FCC Chmn. Powell last week rejected such concerns as “shortsighted and incorrect” and emphasized the NPRM would leave intact interLATA restrictions and ILEC obligations under Telecom Act’s Sec. 251 and 252. Alliance for Community Media Exec. Dir. Bunnie Riedel said purported need to reclassify Internet access as information service was “the very argument the cable operators have used to keep cable modem service closed to competition.” Just as cable operators currently can choose Internet service providers (ISPs) for their customers, FCC would enable ILECs to do likewise, she said. Both industries “must be open to competition so when you or I don’t like our Internet service we can go shopping for a better one, just like we can do now with long distance service,” she said: “It’s time for the FCC and Congress to put consumer interests ahead of the insatiable desires of the telecommunications industry.”