22 Jun 2010

Carriers Eager For Telecom 'Reform,' Since They'll Write The Law - Telecom '...



You may have noted that during the recent debates over Title 2 reclassification, both AT&T and Verizon began putting their support behind the idea of getting Congress to rewrite telecom law. This week the companies even proclaimed (after closed door meetings with the FCC) they might support certain network neutrality rules. That's a strange choice given both companies' traditional hatred of government and regulation (unless that regulation hurts a competitor).

Of course the reason AT&T and Verizon are eager to have Congress "reform" the Communications Act is because both companies know that they'll largely be the ones writing it. As such, they'll ensure that the FCC is all-but toothless when it comes to actually protecting consumers, and they'll also ensure that any pro-consumer language in any Act rewrite is chock full of loopholes. Techdirt seems to be the only website we've seen that notes how this works:

Want to see how regulatory capture works in action? Congress is apparently gearing up to start the massive process of reforming telecom/broadband laws later this week, and the communications companies are ready for it. A recent report shows that the big telcos/broadband companies have not only spent big on lobbying the government, they're hiring a ton of ex-government employees, including eighteen former members of Congress, to act as lobbyists. A full 72% of telco lobbyists are former employees of the federal government, including the two top (former) staffers to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who is the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, who will have a role in telco reform.
The full scope of the revolving door between AT&T, Comcast and Verizon lobbyists and Congress is really quite spectacular, though not surprising. The entire system's really quite a win for carriers -- given it not only allows them to all-but directly write the laws -- but when those laws fail to do anything of note for consumers or competetion (because they designed them that way) -- the carriers can then complain about how all regulation is prone to failure. Again, U.S. telecom is not a free market, it's a monopoly or duopoly market where the rules are crafted by the wealthiest operators to ensure that never changes.
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