WASHINGTON-There is not any official definition of broadband in law today and policy makers may be trying to apply an old law to the high-speed world, senators said at a hearing on Tuesday.
“I don’t think we have a broadband policy in this country … I think it is so important that we spell out a broadband policy for this country … I don’t think you will find broadband policy in the [Telecommunications Act of 1996],” said Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) at a communications subcommittee hearing on broadband access in rural America.
“We thought we were working with ’90s technology with a 1935 act … I think that is pretty indicative of what we have heard today. We may be in a position where we are behind the curve again,” added Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chairman of the communications subcommittee.
The view of Burns and Breaux, however, was not unanimous.
“I find it a little disingenuous that in ’96 we didn’t contemplate data … back then there was a very significant portion of the traffic that was data,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).
“If we weren’t thinking about it, the companies were certainly thinking about it. That is their sole preoccupation,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).
Differences between the deployment of broadband technologies in urban and rural America has been broadly coined the “digital divide.”
Legislators and regulators are concerned about the deployment of broadband-especially for rural America-but a House bill sponsored by Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), chairman of the House telecom subcommittee, is being opposed by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
Tauzin’s bill would allow regional Bell operating companies to offer long-distance data. Tauzin and Roy Neel, president of the United States Telecom Association, appeared before the Senate panel to express support for the measure.
There is not a Senate companion measure to the Tauzin bill. Instead, Senators are looking at subsidy programs and tax incentives to close the digital divide.
