Congress Mulling 24 Broadband Bills, with Focus on Rural Areas
Twenty-four bills on broadband are pending in Congress, according to a Congressional Research Service report released Monday. The measures deal mainly with extending broadband access into rural areas, a hot topic for lawmakers up for reelection who have to answer to constituents without access to high-speed service. The bills suggest a variety of options, but many deal with using Universal Service Fund money to subsidize broadband buildout.
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It isn’t clear “to what degree such issues will become a focal point for legislative activity,” the report said, taking stock of hearings held in both the Senate Commerce and House Commerce Committees, the House Telecom Subcommittees and House Agriculture Committee. The House Small Business Committee examined the “adequacy” of the FCC’s broadband data collection methodology and compared the status of U.S. broadband deployment compared with other industrialized countries.
“A consensus has been growing” that changes since the 1996 Telecom Act, and the growing convergence in communications, make a rewrite of the laws necessary, the report said. The regulatory debate focuses on issues such as how much existing regulations should be applied to traditional providers when they enter markets where they don’t hold market power, the report said. Other considerations include whether existing regulations should be imposed on new entrants as they compete with traditional providers, and the regulatory framework for new technologies not easily classified in the current system.
“Regulatory treatment of broadband technologies continues to hold a major focus in the policy debate,” the report said. What needs to be sorted out is whether present laws and regulations are needed to ensure the development of competition, or if such laws and regulations “are overly burdensome and discourage needed investment and deployment of such services” it said. Open access requirements are also a “major and contentious part of the dialogue,” the report said. Whether “social regulations” such as E-911, disability access and law enforcement regulations should be applied to new technologies continues to be debated, the report said. And interest and growth in municipal broadband networks has sparked debate on the “appropriate role of the government sector” and whether it should compete with the private sector, the CRS report said.
The report said growth in broadband subscribers in urban and high income areas “appears to be outpacing deployment in rural and low-income areas.” Some lawmakers are concerned that communities and individuals without access to broadband “could be at risk” because broadband is so important to e- commerce, which will determine economic development and prosperity. The White House has delegated to NTIA the responsibility for developing a broadband policy, the report noted. In 2004, President Bush announced a broadband effort and advocated a permanent prohibition on broadband taxes. But some in Congress think the administration needs to do more.
One step forward is the recently House-enacted farm bill (HR-2419) (CD July 30 p7), which comes up for reauthorization every five years. It would set up a broadband grant program for education and public safety, fund rural broadband efforts, direct the Agriculture Secretary to prepare a report describing a comprehensive broadband strategy, and require wider access to 911 emergency telephone service. The bill also would help rural public TV stations switch from analog to digital broadcast equipment. The measure also reauthorizes telemedicine and distance learning services in rural areas.