July 23, 2003
Telecommunications partner Thomas Jones testified before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of The House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the FCC’s proposal to remove Title II regulation from ILEC broadband facilities used to provide Internet access.
On July 21, Willkie Telecommunications partner Thomas Jones testified before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of The House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the FCC’s proposal to remove Title II regulation from ILEC broadband facilities used to provide Internet access. Mr. Jones testified at the hearing, entitled “The Regulatory Status of Broadband Services: Information Services, Common Carriage, or Something in Between,” on behalf of Allegiance Telecom, Conversent Communications, and Time Warner Telecom. He told the Subcommittee that the FCC proposal “reverses decades of precedent and threatens Congress’ telecommunications policies.” He testified that eliminating the ILECs’ obligation to sell broadband loops to their customers would adversely impact small and medium-sized companies which rely on ILEC broadband loops as their only alternative for broadband service. He explained that “Without the Title requirement that ILECs provide CLECs with broadband loops on reasonable terms and conditions, competition in this dynamic and innovative segment of the economy will likely disappear.” Second, he told the panel that “deregulating the broadband transmission used to provide ILEC Internet access threatens many of the core social and national security objectives established by Congress.” For example, he explained how reclassification could cause statutory requirements regarding universal service, privacy, access to the disabled, slamming and CALEA to become inapplicable to broadband. In closing, Mr. Jones emphasized that Congress specified Section 10 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act as the mechanism that the FCC may use to deregulate, which allows the agency to target forbearance to the particular markets in which it is warranted. Thomas Jones is a partner in the Telecommunications Department of Willkie Farr & Gallagher in Washington, D.C., specializing in the regulation of telephone and data services.