All,
Another side to the proposed FCC Fees:
---
Congressional Group Opposes Net Phone
Charges
(04/06/98; 8:54 p.m. EST)
By John Borland, Net Insider
The Federal Communication Commission should not
impose new regulations and fees on Internet telephony
companies, a congressman influential on
telecommunications issues said Monday.
Speaking to a group of reporters and company
officials at the headquarters of Netscape in Mountain
View, Calif., Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) said the FCC
was badly off track. "There's a simple answer," he
said. "[The FCC] should keep their hands off the
Internet."
Tauzin chairs the influential Commerce subcommittee
on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer
Protection.
The FCC is scheduled to report to Congress later this
week on how it will implement new rules governing the
national universal service fund, into which telephone
companies pay to subsidize service for rural areas and
poor customers. In their report, the Commission is
expected to recommend that Net phone companies
begin contributing to this fund.
"Those people who are talking about doing that are, I
think, the biggest enemies of the Internet," Tauzin said.
Along with Reps. Rick White, (R-Wash.), Chris Cox
(R-Calif.), and several others, Tauzin is sponsoring a
wide-ranging Internet Protection Act that would take
away the FCC's authority to impose new regulatory
fees on Net services "until we give it back," he said.
The FCC is caught in the middle of a struggle between
traditional telephone companies and high-tech interests
as it tries to implement the provisions of the 1996
Telecommunications Act. Telephone companies are
required to pay billions of dollars in regulatory fees
every year, and they say their Internet competitors are
getting a free ride. Net phone companies say their
industry would be crippled if they were forced to pay
the fees now.
The FCC's report was commissioned by U.S. Senator
Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who has advocated forcing
Internet phone companies to pay the same fees as
their telephone competitors. The report will not be
final, however: The FCC must still propose a set of
rules that would apply the universal service fees to Net
telephony companies, which would go through a
public comment period before being voted on by the
Commission.
Commissioners have not yet officially commented on
their report's contents, although FCC Chairman Bill
Kennard alluded to the controversy in a statement last
week. "We must ensure that Americans have
affordable access to telecommunications service as we
promote the continued development of information
technology," Kennard said.
Net phone companies are already mobilizing against
the FCC report. For example, IDT Corp. company
officials said Monday the company will offer free
Internet calls for consumers to call Congress and the
FCC and register their opposition to the new charges.
Tauzin also addressed other high-tech issues pending
in front of his subcommittee at the Monday meeting.
He said he was confident that encryption supporters
could find a way to satisfy federal law enforcement
concerns about liberalizing the nation's encryption
export policy this year.
The congressman said Silicon Valley companies and
encryption lobbyists need to convince the FBI that it
can do its job even in a "high-tech, encrypted"
environment. The FBI would drop their objections to
current legislation allowing the export of strong
encryption software if high-tech interests assured the
Bureau they will help set up an National Security
Agency-style encryption-breaking lab, he added.
Tauzin visited the west coast as part of a round of
meetings with TechNet executives, including Netscape
CEO Jim Barksdale and Cisco's John Chambers.
TechNet is a Silicon Valley-based lobbying group
headed by Barksdale and venture capitalist John
Doerr. |
