November 28, 2006
Communications Daily
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Mich. is shaping up as the latest battleground between net neutrality proponents and companies that call current FCC enforcement powers adequate to guard consumers against Web content blocking. A video franchising bill being weighed by the state Senate is the focus of lobbying by Google and other companies that want it fitted with net neutrality provisions, activists said. On the other side is Hands Off the Internet, a consortium that includes Alcatel and AT&T and opposes such efforts. States may become the net neutrality combat zone, given low chances of Congress passing a telecom bill, industry officials said.
Mich.'s Senate Technology & Energy Committee will hold a hearing Wed. on video franchise legislation (HB-6456) that has become a focal point of the net neutrality debate. Hands Off the Internet wants lawmakers to reject Google's suggestion to put network neutrality provisions in the bill (CD Nov 24 p10). Google officials didn't return an e-mail message right away. The Mich. brouhaha worries net neutrality foes, Hands Off the Internet's Mike McCurry said: "We are obviously trying to be active in Michigan and we will continue to monitor other state activities... Piecemeal regulation of the Internet in this fashion would be a horrendous policy choice and would be largely impossible to enforce.
"Media activists at Free Press asked Mich. members to attend a meeting today (Tues.) at which it and others will deliver an 18,000-signature petition endorsing net neutrality legislation. Free Press Communications Dir. Craig Aaron slammed the measure. "It's a bad bill," he said: "There is no protection for net neutrality." The National League of Cities is trying to prevent passage of telecom legislation that doesn't include net neutrality language during the lame duck U.S. Senate session, lobbyist Alex Ponder said: "Members [should] contact Senators to urge them not to pass a telecom bill in lame duck... and keep an eye out for it being peeled off as part of a larger" bill. Some towns have opposed telecom reform that could lead to less municipal involvement in video franchising.
Net neutrality advocates may ask PUCs in other states to rule that they have power to enforce net neutrality, said industry officials. Such efforts likely won't bear fruit because PUC regulation would conflict with federal rules, said Netcompetition.org Chmn. Scott Cleland, whose group opposes net neutrality legislation: "Net neutrality forces can jump up and down at the state level, but they're barking up the wrong tree... Broadband is an information service, an interstate service under federal jurisdiction." - Jonathan Make
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