Hearing of House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Internet: How Internet Protocol-Enabled Services are Changing the Face of Communications...
HEARING OF HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET: HOW INTERNET PROTOCOL-ENABLED SERVICES ARE CHANGING THE FACE OF COMMUNICATIONS: A VIEW FROM GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
April 27, 2005
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Mr. Markey. Thank you.
Ms. Strauss, in closed captioning, back in the early 1990's, the industry opposed closed captioning. They said it would be too much of a burden on them. We said well, we need it to help out those 10 or 20 million people who are hard of hearing in America who use the TV as to--so we mandated it out of this committee, and the television industry did its best. Who would have thought the greatest use for it is people in bar rooms just watching basketball or football games?
But unintended consequences of sometimes Congress acting, and in fact, it turns out that most immigrant families turn on the TV with closed captioning so that their children can see the language, because the parents can't speak it. So there are tens of millions of others that use it in different ways. So it is a real burden. We had to mandate that. And then there is others where we created a readily achievable standard for the industry to meet in different areas.
What would you recommend for the IP services? Which approach should we take?
Ms. Peltz Strauss. Well, I would recommend the approach of an undue burden standard, which is the standard that is used with closed captioning. And the reason for this is that we are now at the outset. We are at the beginning of a new technology, and with the new technology, it is much easier to incorporate access, rather than retrofitting it later on.
The readily achievable standard was originally created in the Americans With Disabilities Act to make it easier for mom and pop in small stores not to have to retrofit with their--to put in elevators, to put in stairs. Not to have to incur great expenditures in retrofitting small establishments.
The undue burden standard, which basically says that an accessibility feature has to be incorporated, unless it is undue burden, is easier to meet when you are at the outset of a technology. And here, we have software-based technologies that are very easy to incorporate access.
Mr. Markey. Thank you. With the municipalities, back in 1992 when this subcommittee--we actually had to pass a law because cable companies were coming to communities and saying, you have got to give us an exclusive contract. If you want us to come to your community, the promise is you will never have another cable company in town but us. And so 95 percent of all municipalities had guaranteed a monopoly in perpetuity to the cable companies. So our subcommittee had to void all of those monopolies so that we could have some competition.
Now, we come to 2005, and a lot of people are now saying, well, maybe we should pass a law prohibiting the local communities from actually providing telecommunications services to their own community, in competition with the cable company, the telephone company, or whomever.
Can you give us your views on the appropriateness of Congress telling you that you can not have your own system to compete with a cable company or telecommunications company, as long as you provide equal access to everyone that would want to use it?
Mr. Billings. I am a private sector player, came out of the private sector. Believe government shouldn't go where the private sector will go, and as I have in my testimony said, 8 years ago we set out to do a number of things. I said we wanted to bring about the benefits of technology to bless our residents' lives. And we fully expected and fully intended to use private sector provided connectivity. We had five franchise agreements in place with fiber providers. When it came time to hook up our traffic lights and our scada and our buildings, none would do it.
Mr. Upton. No.
Mr. Billings. None would do it. None would step up. And so we did. And I hope----
Mr. Upton. You did it? The city did it?
Mr. Billings. I would hope that you wouldn't preclude cities, especially small cities, especially rural cities, from being able to do what they need to do when others are unwilling or unable to do it.
Mr. Markey. I agree with you. Mr. Mayor--Mr. Fellman.
Mr. Fellman. Congressman, thank you for asking that question. Let me talk about a legal issue that piggybacks. I agree with everything that Mayor Billings said. In the existing Telecom Act in 1996, you have got language in Section 253 that says ``States and localities shall not pass any laws prohibiting any entity from providing telecommunications services.'' And a number of States have passed laws, and in my opinion, in violation of the Act, by prohibiting their units of local government from providing telecommunication services. The FCC ruled that while municipalities are creatures of the States, they can do to them what they want, that case, as you know, got to the U.S. Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court said that Congress was not clear on what it meant by any entity. So we thought that it was clear that ``any'' meant ``any'', but the U.S. Supreme Court did not agree, and----
Mr. Markey. I drafted, the provision, so you can tell them I meant ``any''----
Mr. Fellman. Okay.
Mr. Markey. [continuing] in its usual use of the term.
Mr. Fellman. Had we known that, we would have brought you to the oral argument, but there is an opportunity this year to fix that problem, because the court would have ruled the other way if there was clearer language in the statute and clearer legislative record that ``any'' meant ``any''. So I would encourage Congress to fix that problem in the next iteration.
Mr. Markey. We will pay tribute to all of the municipal light companies across the country. We will pay tribute to the Bonneauville Power Company, to the Tennessee Valley Authority. There is a lot of times when they want to do it, the government can do it well. But if you don't do it well, they can vote you out of office, too. Okay? So you try to do this and it doesn't work, you have an accountable, you know, job that the voters can exercise their right. But I don't think it should be this
Congress that tells you, our running municipalities that you shouldn't try to undertake these endeavors.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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