Congress announced on Monday that they will start the process of revising the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The key committee players (Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Sen. John Kerry, Rep. Henry Waxman, and Rep. John Boucher) will bring together “stakeholders” in a “series of bi-partisan, issue focused meetings beginning in June.”
As you may vaguely remember, the ’96 legislation was intended to spur innovation and competition by forcing the incumbents to unbundle parts of their networks and make them available to competitive carriers at wholesales prices.
The incumbents resisted mightily both in the trenches and in the courts, and the competitive carriers that have survived to this day are just holding on.
There is a big difference this time around as Congress rolls out 2.0 of the Act.
I can only hope the new legislation will have more sensible, practical definitions for the layers of the communications stack, and state more clearly the obligations of carriers and service providers that ply the Internet byways.
One important change is the rise of the content providers, which includes Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon,Twitter, Hulu, et al. In theory, they should provide a counterbalance to the more extreme items on the legacy incumbent carriers agenda.
Should be fun to watch the stakeholders in June as they stake their claims.
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