Though I’m glad that the committee passed the Bill for Strict Network Neutrality, which will now be put up for a vote in both the house and the senate, it worries me that this whole issue has become nothing but another Congressional Turf War. The stakes? Whether the FCC or the Judiciary Committee oversees Network Neutrality issues.

According to the CNet story:

That other bill, called the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement, or COPE, Act, says the Federal Communications Commission “shall have exclusive authority” to investigate violations of Net neutrality principles. It’s backed by Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and does not include strict Net neutrality mandates.

Because the FCC is overseen by Barton’s committee, that proposal would effectively cut off Judiciary Committee members from being able to hold hearings on Net neutrality antitrust violations, give speeches about corporate malfeasance and solicit campaign cash from affected companies–the lifeblood of modern Washington politics.

That resulted in an unusual situation in which politicians who weren’t enthusiastic about the Judiciary bill nevertheless voted for it on Wednesday. “I think the bill is a blunt instrument, and yet I think it does send a message that it’s important to attain jurisdiction for the Justice Department and for antitrust issues,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat.

According to Ars Technica the fight is just beginning, since there are now two competing bills on the house floor and the PACs (and deep pockets) are just kicking into high gear on this. So though this bill is a good thing, the fight is far from over. And the insult added to injury is that the money the telecomms are using to lobby Congress was taken out of each and every US taxpayer’s pocket in the form of tax incentives and other preferential treatment enacted when the Telecomm Act of ‘96 was enacted, which was supposed to ensure broadband to all, and instead ensured high profits for the Telecomms and broken promises to US residents.

It amazes me that companies like AT&T and Cisco can say that Network Neutrality will stifle competition and innovation and raise prices when historically the opposite has been true, as in the case of deregulation of the power grid and the resulting Enron Scandal.

Meanwhile the Telecomms are fighting on a local front that we should all be aware of. To ensure that their precious network will be protected on all fronts the telecomms are lobbying at state level to ensure that free community wifi is illegal. This has already been enacted in my home state of Pennsylvania in 2004, despite HUGE community opposition. Unfortunately the Telecomms have a strong presence here in many municipalities and are the major contributors to many a political campaign, so the will of the people is subsumed by the needs of the politico to fund his future in politics. The community wifi fight at state level is currently being fought across the country on many fronts.

I just hope we’re all not reduced to voting with our wallets on this– by returning to dialup in order to have access to ALL information on the web.

Technorati Tags: Network Neutrality, H.R.5417, COPE, FCC, Judiciary Committee, AT&T, Verizon, Community Wifi, Community Broadband

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 10:43 amunder Web News and . Comment RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.