Stakeholders Deluge House Commerce With Ideas on Communications Act Revamp

CenturyLink wants competitive and technological parity, narrowly defined public interest principles and meaningful periodic review, the telco told Congress (http://bit.ly/1cDA98s). “In particular, Congress should modernize incumbent provider-specific regulation, which threatens to slow the ongoing IP transition and dampen further competition and innovation for customers,” CenturyLink said.

Yet neither the age of the Communications Act nor the technology changes in recent years necessitate “fundamental alterations to the Communications Act where current law has proven successful at enabling network evolution and promoting innovation, competition, universal service, and consumer protection,” cautioned WTA-Advocates for Rural Broadband, formerly known as the Western Telecom Alliance (http://bit.ly/1hYWNbG). “Different regulatory models” are required to bring broadband to all Americans, it said. Many of the law’s principles are sound, it said. WTA’s comments outlined the challenges of providing telecom service in rural areas. “WTA strongly encourages the Committee to keep the different circumstances of rural areas in mind when considering regulatory silos.”

NTCA-the Rural Broadband Association also backs a continued commitment to what it calls “core principles” in current telecom law -- universal service, consumer protection and competition. “Although ‘market-based’ frameworks in many cases may ensure consumers realize the full benefits of innovation at the lowest possible prices, in rural areas there are often no such ‘markets’ to speak of,” the groups said (http://bit.ly/1lqixCX), calling for a “reasonable statutory and regulatory construct that ensures fulfillment” of such core principles. NTCA backs USF contributions based on network use, “seamless” interconnection in an IP era, tailored regulatory obligations on smaller providers and a removal of confusion over classifying services as either information or telecom. “Confusion over classifying VoIP and the epidemic of rural call incompletion represent only a harbinger of what is to come if the distinction between telecommunications and information services is perpetuated in any legislative review and update,” NTCA said.

"The Communications Act must facilitate access to additional spectrum to all market participants so that those resources can be brought to bear to serve consumers and to support all of the innovations ahead in the mobile future,” Mobile Future advocated in its comments. “Congress should model its policy on the deregulatory and federalized framework that has generally applied to wireless and broadband services, which have been the most successful segments of the communications sector.” An update should kill “the current patchwork quilt of state and local regulations that inhibit innovation and sow confusion,” it said.

The Technology Policy Institute laid out three principles to guide any updates: The FCC should assume “a well-defined consumer welfare standard,” should “apply cost-effectiveness analysis to rules that are not inherently economic in nature, such as social goals like connecting schools and libraries to some minimum broadband standard,” and should help facilitate the movement of spectrum markets. TPI Vice President-Research Scott Wallsten wrote those comments (http://bit.ly/Lx2nHQ). The update should emphasize “entry, competition, and market experimentation” as well as make the FCC more accountable, he said.

Broadband for America outlined several principles House Commerce should consider. “Public policy must treat every business participating in the Internet ecosystem in a consistent manner,” the group said (http://bit.ly/1n3bJ9O), hailing the role competition should assume in any rewrite. It criticized “legacy” rules, and said “regulatory barriers that impede sunset of legacy services and transition to IP networks and services must be eliminated."

Perhaps merge the FCC and FTC, said several American Enterprise Institute scholars who signed onto a white paper making several proposals. “Congress should revise the approach taken by the Communications Act, eliminate the silo-based structure and replace it with a technology-neutral, competition-oriented approach,” AEI said (http://bit.ly/1ddZ8Lp). “Concurrent with this process, Congress should rationalize the Commission, apportioning the majority of its functions and resources to its sister agencies.” AEI criticized ambiguities of authority, brought into “sharp relief” by the recent court decision on net neutrality and Communications Act Section 706 broadband authority. “The ultimate boundaries of this authority are unclear -- but it is conceivable that Section 706 gives the FCC authority to regulate areas such as online privacy, data security, and the so-called ‘Internet of Things,’ where the FTC is already actively engaged,” AEI said.

The Free State Foundation backs a “clean slate approach,” according to comments of President Randolph May and five legal scholars associated with the foundation (http://bit.ly/1eDsNi4). The 18-page document proposes a “marketplace competition-based standard, so that, except in limited circumstances, the FCC’s regulatory activities will be required to be tied to findings of consumer harm resulting from lack of sufficient competition.” Use the act to emphasize simplicity and to institutionalize agency process updates the House has proposed, Free State said. The FTC should more clearly take over in jurisdiction of privacy and data security, it added. “The transition from narrowband to broadband and from analog to digital has rendered the silo regime statutory structure obsolete,” Free State declared.

The federal government should have “most regulatory authority,” Free State added, pointing out that the distinction between interstate and intrastate service no longer matters in the way it once did. But Free State did not dismiss a state role. “State and local authorities should retain primary jurisdiction over siting decisions, because they know best how specific projects will affect a local community,” it said. “Similarly, state regulators are in a better position to understand the individualized needs of local communities and thus should retain a prominent voice regarding consumer protection issues, though subject to federal oversight to assure that parochial issues do not needlessly jeopardize broader national objectives.”

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance identified retransmission consent as “one area where the need for a rewrite to the act can be recognized by even the most casual observer,” it said (http://bit.ly/1fu5UBo). “Current rules for retransmission consent grant an inherit advantage to broadcasters by providing leverage in negotiations with monopoly cable providers and granting broadcasters the right to choose between guaranteed carriage or insisting that multichannel video programming distributors (cable and satellite providers) obtain and pay for a station’s consent to retransmit the station to local subscribers.”

"In general, telecom regulators have created laws that are incompatible with the internet’s architecture,” wrote Jonathan Liebenau and Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood, researchers at the London School of Economics (http://bit.ly/Mn5odE). It’s no longer sensible to distinguish between incumbents and networks governed by market forces, distinctions “no longer tenable in the world where information and communications are global,” they said. They suggest some evidence-based metrics in a presentation they include.

"Like an old cottage receiving several massive additions spanning decades by different clumsy architects, communications law is a disorganized and dilapidated structure that should be razed and reconstituted,” judged Brent Skorup, a research fellow with George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, in his comments (http://bit.ly/1iUkTYP). “When Congress replaces command-and-control rules with market forces, consumers will be the primary beneficiaries.” He also pointed to the importance of replacing “the FCC’s misused ‘public interest’ standard with the general ‘unfair competition standard.'"

Other stakeholders told us earlier last week they were preparing comments. A Republican House Commerce aide has said the committee will eventually post all comments online but could not say when. (jhendel@warren-news.com)