Hearing of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce - Digital Future of the Unites States

Statement

Hearing of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce - Digital Future of the Unites States, Part VI: The Future of Telecommunications Competition

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REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you and Ranking Member Upton for allowing me to continue to participate in the hearings that we have. And I thank you for the hearing that you're going to have today because I do believe it is a timely and really a critical matter that there should be a discussion about.

Over the weekend I did what a lot of Americans do, I watched a little bit of football. My Tennessee Titans were off for the weekend, but Indianapolis had to come to Tennessee to find them a quarterback. I had to check in on him and make certain that he was carrying forth in the appropriate manner.

And like a lot of Americans, I kind of glanced through the football game, but I pay a lot of attention to the commercials -- like to see what's being marketed out there. And I was struck this weekend with how much time was being spent on telecommunications providers and the new options that are being rolled out there.

My goodness -- traditional video services, their expanded triple play options, voice/video phone, broadband, Voice over Internet Protocol -- everybody was marketing their low-cost service, and it just seemed to go on and on for the weekend.

I think it does say a couple of things. Number one, competition is robust. It is quite robust, and there is a market that is there and there is a void to be filled. If it was not you all wouldn't be advertising like you're advertising on Sunday football.

Until recently, as Mr. Stearns said, everybody operated in a stovepipe, providing one or the other. But now companies, that are both large and small companies, can compete with one another on a regulatory playing field that doesn't force competitors to line up and choose sides.

Today's industry leaders are playing a different game in an environment that provides for robust telecommunications competition, and the American consumer -- American consumer -- is the winner in this.

VoIP subscribers grew by 709 percent from '99 to '06, the number of wireless subscribers by 372 percent from '96 to '05, and local exchange lines grew by 263.5 percent. So the companies are increasing. A lot of this has happened because of the Telecom Act of '96 and the framework that it put in place.

The current deregulatory regime seems to be working. I'm looking forward to hearing from our witnesses and I appreciate the courtesy of the chairman and ranking member.

I yield back.

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