WASHINGTON-The regulation of content could become a major issue for the wireless telecommunications industry in coming years as carriers in an increasingly competitive market seek to supplement voice traffic with information services on high-capacity digital networks.
Already there is evidence of the new trend as the age of digital convergence takes hold. Pagers offer sports scores, stock quotes, news headlines, weather forecasts and other information services on a relatively narrow band. New personal communications services networks, with far more bandwidth, will have even great capability to offer an even wider range of data and video offerings.
Congress is wrestling with legislation to protect against copyright infringement on the information superhighway. Bills have been introduced in the House by Reps. Carlos Moorhead (R-Calif.) and Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) and in the Senate by Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
The House bill, which was supposed to have been marked up recently by the courts and intellectual subcommittee, is stuck in the mud partially due to controversy over a provision that would make telecommunications carriers, including wireless, liable for transmitting unauthorized copyrighted material.
The Senate measure is not moving either.
Both copyright and the First Amendment, heretofore not concerns of the wireless telecom industry, are issues for the 20th century.
“As U.S. mobile data subscribership continues to rise, First Amendment regulation will become an issue for many wireless communications businesses,” said Julia Kogan, a Washington, D.C. lawyer at Hogan & Hartson and former Federal Communications Commission policymaker.
“Especially with digital equipment and multiplexing technologies,” she added, “spectrum is providing so much capacity that content regulation is becoming more and more relevant for wireless service providers.”
For now, the wireless telecommunications industry is taking a wait-and-see approach and is not devoting much attention to content regulation because of the many other issues-like resale, interconnection, microwave relocation, numbering, health and safety and siting-that are pressing.
“The issue is one of priority,” said Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. But, he added, “You can see it [the issue] there.”
Wheeler said wireless carriers have focused traditionally on getting the radio signal from point A to point B, unlike the cable TV industry that he used to represent which concerns itself with finding content that consumers will buy. CTIA, in recognition of the new trend, sponsors a trade show devoted to wireless applications.
One big reason wireless carriers can afford to be lax in monitoring content regulations right now is that local and long-distance telecom carriers are carrying the water on Capitol Hill. And in this case, unlike interconnection, the wireline and wireless carriers have a common interest in limiting their liability in transmitting information services.
“All those issues affecting the wireline side will be transferred to the wireless side,” said David Siddall, an aide to FCC Commissioner Susan Ness.
