Watch Out, They're Associating!

Something is happening in Washington D.C. as TechNet finally speaks (anaemically) on Tauzin-Dingell, the USISPA morphs from a small ISP rep to a telco stooge, and new associations blossom inside the beltway.

by Jim Wagner of internetnews.com [January 17, 2002]

TechNet, an organization of high-tech industry leaders, threw down the gauntlet Tuesday and called on the federal government to adopt a 100 Mbps/100 million broadband customer goal by the end of 2009.

John Chambers, Cisco Systems Inc. president and chief executive officer and co-founder of TechNet, said the need for widespread broadband is as important as any other national policy of the past.

"Broadband should be a national imperative for this country in the 21st Century, just like putting a man on the moon was an imperative in the last century," he said. "In order to stay competitive, educate the workforce and increase productivity, the United States must have ubiquitous broadband.

These goals, at first blush, seem to be in line with a new Internet service provider (ISP) organization created Monday to sway government and political thinking on the current status of the broadband industry, namely that current regulations are stymieing high-speed growth.

Connie Correll, TechNet executive vice president, vehemently denied claims the organization's goals were in line with or even lent credence to efforts by the nation's incumbent phone companies to do away with current legislation through the Tauzin-Dingell "Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act."

"We have not taken a position on Tauzin-Dingell, nor will we," she said. "Our goal is to encourage competition to create a level playing field where all companies can compete fairly," she said. "We're hoping for the government to set a national policy and we sent some policy recommendations on how to get there, which is primarily creating a competitive free-market environment that is focused on deregulation."

The organization has outlined several recommended goals for the government to adopt, conceding changes will need to be done on an "incremental" basis:

• Foster innovation and reduce regulation in broadband deployment
• Invest in broadband infrastructure and remove regulatory "disincentives"
• Encourage states and localities to streamline laws and regulations
• Open up the wireless spectrum (assumably from the Pentagon to commercial interests)
• Tax breaks for carriers who deploy to rural and underserved communities
• The government should not pick technology winners and losers.

Rick White, TechNet chief executive officer, says the U.S. needs to embrace these guidelines if it is to succeed in the international community down the road.

"The United States led the world in developing the information economy," he said. "If we want to keep our leadership role, we need a high bandwidth network that will give U.S. citizens access to the enormous promise of 21st Century technology. The report we are releasing today outlines how we can get there."

The problem with these goals is that they fly in the face of current Federal Communication Commission regulations and the policies of Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of the Department of Defense.

Companies have been trying for years to use spectrum set aside by the military. The Pentagon has been so worried about losing the issue that it created a deputy Defense position Jan. 4 to oversee frequency spectrum issues. The press release accompanying the announcement said, "potential competition, interference and coordination requirements" prompted the need for a new spectrum "czar."

Fall of a founder
Meanwhile, two major ISP organizations quietly closed. The Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX), which co-founded the Palo Alto Internet eXchange (PAIX is now an independent subsidary of MFN) and was a driving force behind creating a commercial framework for peering for ISPs, as well as the anti-RBOC lobbying group, the USISPA (see Advocacy Group Polls ISPs on Telco Sins) ran out of funding and closed. Their domain names were purchased by undisclosed parties and given to Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, a Washington, D.C. law firm with offices in Phoenix and Los Angeles. The website infirmation.com said that summer interns at Steptoe were paid $1,600 per week in 1999 and noted that recent clients include Motorola (Iridium) and Southern California Edison.

Created Monday (its website is still under construction and phone calls to the number listed on the temporary page at USISPA and CIX were not returned at press time), the new USISPA is made up of executives from AOL Time Warner, Verizon Online, EarthLink Inc., and WorldCom, to name a few.

With two of the largest broadband ISPs in the nation (AOL with cable and Verizon's DSL), it appears that the organization will try to convince the FCC or legislators to revamp the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

AOL Time Warner, forced to open up its cable network as part of merger conditions imposed by the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission, has flip-flopped in recent times on the nation's need for open access (allowing independent ISPs to sell cable Internet services on the AOL network).

One thing is certain: the new USISPA is not the old one.

Council for a Competitve Internet
Reached for comment, members of the former USISPA and CIX told ISP-Planet that a new grassroots organization, the Council for a Competitive Internet (CCI) will continue to fight for the rights of competitors to access the Bell monopoly local network, and will continue to oppose Tauzin-Dingell.

"This country's economic health cannot withstand the kind of job loss and financial havoc this kind of special interest legislation will wreak", said Steve Mossbrook, President of CCI and the Wyoming ISP Association (CEO of CLEC Contact Communications and ISP Wyoming.com).

"Look, this isn't just cheap rhetoric," said Maura Colleton, Executive Director of CCI, "it's just basic math. Contrary to popular opinion, the majority of ISPs have been crippled by the simple fact that the Bell monopolies have prevented them from reaching their customers. And if you can't reach customers, you can't stay in business. But don't believe me just look at the FCC's most recent report on local competition 5 ½ years after the Act, the ILECs still control over 93 percent of America's local phone lines. That pretty much says it all."

Joe Plotkin, a former USISPA officer, said, "It's troubling that they would try to take advantage of any goodwill that the USISPA represents. Aren't they on different sides of many issues? How many of these are retail ISPs? Are they trying to imply that they represent the viewpoint of ISPs?"

A formal launch of the association is scheduled for early February.

Meanwhile, a broader alliance called TeleTruth is also in the works. TeleTruth will attempt to unite all ILEC customers, from individuals and the tiniest small business to the largest CLEC.

— End