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FCC head decries cable Internet's local regulation
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Updated 11:11 AM ET June 15, 1999
By Aaron Pressman
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The cable industry's new
high-speed Internet offerings could be delayed or even
wrecked if thousands of local governments each impose a
different set of regulations, the head of the Federal
Communications Commission said on Tuesday.
FCC chairman William Kennard, echoing a similar warning issued by AT&T Corp.
chairman Michael Armstrong on Monday, said the regulation of cable Internet service by
thousands of localities made possible by a federal court ruling two weeks ago in Oregon
would create "chaos."
"The information superhighway will not work if there are 30,000 different technical
standards or 30,000 different regulatory structures for broadband," Kennard said in a
speech to the National Cable Television Association here. "We have to have a national
policy."
Kennard reiterated his position that the FCC should avoid regulating cable's high-speed,
or broadband, Internet services at this early stage, but said his agency was examining
"options" to stem a potential wave of rules from local cable franchising authorities.
"We can't overreact to one federal district court decision," Kennard told reporters after
his speech. "We're very early on in this. There are a number of options that we can
explore. At this point we need to allow the legal process to play out a little bit more."
Kennard declined to elaborate on what the options might be, but the agency has broad power to supercede local rulemakings.
The FCC and Congress have so far declined to regulate cable Internet services, which
require that consumers accessing the Internet over cable also use a cable-owned
company to get Internet services like e-mail and Web page hosting.
About 750,000 people currently use cable modems to reach the Internet at speeds 50
times or more faster than the tens of millions more who still log on over ordinary
telephone modems.
Some local cable franchising authorities, heeding warnings from Internet service
providers and consumer groups that exclusive Internet service deals were
anti-competitive, have tried to require cable companies to allow competing providers
onto their systems.
Two weeks ago, a federal district court upheld the city of Portland's legal authority to
impose such a condition on AT&T as a condition of the long distance telephone
company's purchase of cable operator TCI. The decision has pulled down some cable
stocks, especially that of AtHome Corp. , the leading cable-owned Internet service
provider.
Kennard's first approach appeared to be to try to convince local authorities not to act.
"We're going to work closely with our local franchising authorities," Kennard told
reporters. "I don't want to give anybody the misimpression that we're not going to be
dialoguing with them because some of them do have some serious concerns in this area."
In his speech, Kennard repeated what he has said many times since the FCC in February
refrained from regulating cable Internet services while saying it would monitor the nascent
market.
"We do not have a monopoly in broadband," Kennard said. "We have a no-opoly
because the fact is, most Americans don't even have broadband. We have to get these
pipes built." |
