Lawmakers: Convergence could be end of regulation

U.S. representatives took an opportunity during a "show-and-tell" hearing on voice-and-data convergence technologies to suggest that the 1996 Telecommunications Act should be rewritten -- or scrapped altogether.

Six companies, including Time Warner Cable and Qualcomm Inc., demonstrated new and near-future technologies that deliver a combination of voice, data and video during the hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Wednesday's hearing was one among a series as the subcommittee begins to look at ways to rewrite the far-reaching 1996 Telecommunications Act, said subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican.

Cable and Internet providers starting to provide VOIP (voice over IP) service in competition with the incumbent telephone carriers that inherited their networks after the early '80s breakup of AT&T Corp., and Upton questioned what he called "stovepipe" regulation focused only on telecommunications providers. He predicted that Congress would begin to rewrite the '96 Telecom Act next year.

New technologies are blurring the lines between telecommunications services, traditionally regulated, and unregulated Internet services, Upton said. "I, for one, have made no secret of my belief that the ... stovepipe regulations perpetuated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 need to be revisited given the evolution of technology in the marketplace that was virtually unforeseen at the time that the act was written," he said.

Representative Christopher Cox, a California Republican, went a step further and questioned if regulations created by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) were needed at all. Cox didn't advocate abolishing the FCC, but he mentioned a 1997 book by lawyer Peter Huber that did suggest the agency was no longer needed.

Wireless, telecom, satellite and Internet companies are starting to compete with each other, and a rewrite of the '96 act may not be necessary, Cox said. "This seems to be the competition we've all sought for a long time, so perhaps we should declare victory," he said. "Possibly what we'll learn today is that retirement (of the law) is a better option."

But other lawmakers seemed to back away from abandoning telecommunications regulations. Parts of the Telecom Act and other legislation paved the way for the current landscape that encourages convergence, said Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. For example, the '96 Telecom Act preempted laws in 26 states that prohibited competitors such as utilities and cable companies from offering telecommunications services, he said.

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