CTIA Questions Wheeler Testimony on Title II Wireless
CTIA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann pushed back against some of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s testimony in hearings in the last week. “Since investment in the wireless voice market flourished under a form of common carrier regulation, the Chairman reasons,…
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why not impose similar regulations on wireless broadband?” Bergmann said in a Tuesday blog post. “The Chairman’s reasoning fails for a variety of reasons.” The real wireless market flourishing occurred not in 1993, at the time of that Communications Act Title II designation, but in 2002 and 2003, Bergmann argued, saying: “In 2002 the FCC -- relying on statutory authority -- first declared broadband to be exempt from common carrier regulation, and in 2003 the carriers began deploying wireless broadband networks in that deregulated environment.” Bergmann backed a bigger role for Congress: “If Congress’s long-standing, bi-partisan de-emphasis on Title II regulation is to be jettisoned (and we think it shouldn’t be), that is a call for Congress to make.”