WASHINGTON—The Senate Commerce Committee released its latest draft telecommunications-reform bill this morning—and still wireless pre-emption is missing.
Pre-emption of state regulation has been CTIA’s top telecommunications-reform priority, and the wireless trade association has been scrutinized and criticized for not being able to convince lawmakers to include it.
The House of Representatives passed its version of telecommunications reform last Thursday so industry’s only hope is for the Senate to include the concept in its bill.
“We recognize this is an extremely fluid process and are continuing to work with the chairman and the other committee members to advocate public policy that benefits wireless consumers. Hundreds of millions of Americans are benefiting every day from the innovative and competitive services provided by the wireless industry, and we believe a uniform and consistent set of limited national rules and regulations will provide the best environment for wireless to deliver the cutting-edge services consumers love and have come to expect,” said John Walls, CTIA vice president of public affairs, noting CTIA President Steve Largent is scheduled to testify at a hearing on the new draft tomorrow morning.
Amendments on wireless pre-emption are expected to be offered when the Senate Commerce Committee considers the bill June 20, said commerce committee aides. However, this is not the last draft expected to emerge prior to June 20. Another draft is expected mid-week, said commerce committee staff.
Staff for the Senate Commerce Committee spent the past month meeting with each committee member’s staff and every industry group involved in telecommunications. The issue of wireless pre-emption came up during those meetings, acknowledged the aides, but they said the views ranged from one side of the issue to the other.
Although the lack of pre-emption in the Senate Commerce Committee’s latest draft is bad news for the wireless industry, the good news is that many of the universal-service provisions that are pro-wireless are now in the new draft.
The draft was clear on universal service: “Competitive neutrality means that universal-service support mechanisms and rules neither unfairly advantage nor disadvantage one provider over another, and neither unfairly favor nor disfavor one technology over another.”
The universal-service provisions also change some anti-wireless ideas being pushed by rural local exchange carriers, such as requiring wireless carriers to allow their customers the opportunity to choose their own long-distance provider. The wireless industry has long fought against any “equal-access” requirement.
Additionally, specific broadband speed requirements that would have been onerous for wireless have been replaced in favor of reporting requirements. If a carrier receives money from the broadband portion of the universal-service fund, it must report what it is doing with the money and what speeds it is offering.
Not included in the Senate Commerce Committee’s draft is any change to the controversial network-neutrality study provisions. The original bill introduced May 1 has the Federal Communications Commission studying whether network operators are prioritizing the content traveling over their networks. The bill opens the door for the FCC to get the power to curb such abuses. Democrats had tried unsuccessfully to include language that would prohibit blocking, degrading and/or restricting access to content.
Network-neutrality proponents also lost a fight to include similar language in the House telecom-reform bill. The White House has signaled that it is also opposed to net neutrality.
