The Senate's Telecom Bill
The Senate has come out with its own version of a telecom bill. It is being refered to as Steven's Bill. Its 135 pages, if you want to know wants in it, I'd skip to this analysis.
My 2 cents...
1.) Like the house bill it also has no build out requirements. I have heard talk of a build out amendment and I have asked for more info.
2.) The senate bill restricts localities to creating networks only if they partner with a private provider. Any hoops a locality must jump through slows the advancement of broadband and is a possible deterrent.
3.) Net neutrality is only going to be "studied" by the FCC.
4.) The bill creates a separate broadband fund of $500 million a year to provide broadband to unserved areas. This is great. The House bill had nothing like this. The language mostly says the FCC will set the rules for distributing the funds.
posted by Angela Siefer @ 9:11 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Under Title IX, for-pay access to otherwise public sites could be allowed as long as it is possible to argue competitive forces keep prices in check. An ISP could charge its customers for access to certain sites even if the site itself is free. As an exmple, Road Runner could block access to AOL links . Netzero could block access to Netscape and any of them could block access to Google except for customers willing and able to pay a fee.
There will be unblocked competition that may restrain such activities; but it could be more subtle too. Flexible bandwidth which may or may not be exposed to the end customers.
Access might not be denied but may be irritatingly or unusably slow without paying for expanded bandwith to those sites. Alternatively, internet sites could help ISP's bandwith costs so long as those ISP's only used the extra bandwidth for users coming to their sites.
An FCC review is necessary. In that respect Title IX is a good addition to the bill but the title lacks teeth. What is the disincentive for an ISP to refrain from choosing to follow these practices?
Post a Comment
<< Home