2006 in Congress: 'Full plate' for tech, telecom

The U.S. Congress will face a broad range of technology-related issues, including communications law reform and data-privacy issues, when it returns to work in 2006.

The possibility of a data-breach notification law and a broadband-focused revamp of a decade-old telecommunications law made headlines in 2005, but tech vendors and trade groups are also pushing a range of other proposals, including workforce training programs and patent reform.

Tech trade groups are promoting what some of them call a "full plate," but that doesn't mean everything on their wish lists will be gift-wrapped by the 2006 holiday season. Telecom reform could take up a large chunk of Congress' limited tech bandwidth, and other issues in Washington, D.C., including the Iraq war, could sidetrack tech issues.

It's also an election year, for all of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. Congressional leaders will be under pressure to adjourn early in the fourth quarter of the year, so that lawmakers can campaign for re-election.

"The political environment will only increase in intensity as we go through the year," predicted Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft Corp.'s managing director of federal government affairs.

That said, here are some tech-related issues likely to come up in Congress during 2006:

Telecom reform: The House Energy and Commerce Committee has put out two drafts of a bill that would create a regulatory framework for broadband providers. Committee Chairman Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, has said he wants light regulation, but some broadband providers, including Verizon Communications Inc., have questioned the committee's efforts to require that broadband providers allow users to access any legal content and attach any legal devices to the network.

The so-called net neutrality provisions would prohibit broadband providers from favoring their own or their partners' products.

Broadband providers say it would be bad business to restrict users' access to the Web content they want. There's little evidence of a problem, large broadband providers say. "It is better to let the market work, and if there are instances that pop up, you deal with them," said Kerry Knott, vice president of government affairs at Comcast Corp. "It's a solution in search of a problem, still."

But two large telecom carriers have proposed walling off their broadband television services from other Internet access. Net neutrality advocates -- including Microsoft, Google Inc., and eBay Inc. -- say such a provision is needed to prevent broadband providers from selling off access to their highest speed services to a handful of partners. Without a net neutrality provision, innovation online could be hurt, with small, groundbreaking companies relegated to a second tier of service, net neutrality advocates say.

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