FC: U.S. House to vote on Tauzin-Dingell broadband bill this week

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Mon Feb 25 2002 - 21:13:49 PST

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    The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider the 
    Tauzin-Dingell bill this week. It's a mysteriously-named piece of 
    legislation, in the finest Washington style, and it's becoming suprisingly 
    well-known all of a sudden, as Internet providers try to mobilize their 
    subscribers.
    
    Basically Tauzin-Dingell says the regional Bell companies (Verizon, 
    Bellsouth, SBC, Qwest) would no longer be forced to lease their local lines 
    to competing providers of high-speed Internet access.
    
    As I wrote last week 
    (http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,50620,00.html), the House Rules 
    committee had a deadline of Monday afternoon for amendments to the 
    Tauzin-Dingell. They're summarized here:
    http://www.house.gov/rules/sum_broadband_107.htm
    
    One interesting one from Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) that appears to be 
    non-binding: "Points out that entertainment applications were driving 
    broadband demand prior to litigation-related interruption of service and 
    that broadband demand dropped significantly when Napster shut down.  It 
    concludes that the Congress should review copyright laws to ensure that 
    they keep up with technology while at the same time protecting artists and 
    copyright holders from widespread infringement."
    
    Text of HR1542:
    http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.01542:
    http://www.house.gov/rules/h1542.pdf
    
    The committee reports (warning -- boring):
    ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp107/hr083p1.txt
    ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp107/hr083p2.txt
    
    The U.S. Telecom Association (members include Verizon, Bellsouth, SBC, see 
    http://www.usta.org/fullmem.html) supports the bill:
    http://www.usta.org/on_the_hill/HR1542/support_HR1542.html
    
    Sprint and its kin oppose the bill:
    http://www3.sprint.com/PR/CDA/PR_CDA_Press_Releases_Detail/1,1579,2366,00.html
    
    -Declan
    
    
    
    
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