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April 25, 2006
Another Full Week in Congress:
At 2pm today, the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Telecom and Antitrust will hold an Oversight Hearing on "Network Neutrality: Competition, Innovation and Nondiscriminatory Access." I suspect that the Net Neutrality advocates will have a better audience within the Judiciary Committee than it has had in the Commerce Committee.
At 5pm, down the hall and around the corner (a few feet as the crow flies), the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a full Committee Mark-up of the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006, which passed overwhelmingly out of the Telecom Subcommittee a couple three weeks ago.
The Commerce Committee Mark-up will continue Wednesday morning and might run all day (if the Subcommittee Mark-up was any indication). We expect some more wrangling over Net Neutrality, with Mr. Markey offering another strong amendment to save and advance the Open Internet. We also expect a few amendments and discussion on E911 and disability access obligations for VoIP providers.
It looks like a little jurisdictional turf war might be building between the Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Particularly in light of a recent letter that the Chair of the FTC sent to Rep. Sensenbrenner, Chair of the Judiciary Committee, (asserting FTC jurisdiction over broadband Internet access services, particularly to the extent that broadband access services are no longer construed as "common carrier" services), it does look like the House Committees are vying for turf -- feeling out what their respective roles will be, as well as the respective roles of the FTC and FCC, in the communications future.
For now, our friends in DC have to put up with yet more of the old school ads between the cable companies and the Bells over who gets to provide people their video content. I am looking forward to seeing a few Internet generation ads that we might be able to lob at the Congress and the policymakers before their views and policies are etched in stone by Stone Age thinkers and Stone Age advocates. Again, let's show them all what the Internet could be, and let's start by showing them how we can harness the Internet and our collective genius to revolutionize marketing and advocacy. Send us your viral video or other ads, and compete for cash and glory in our "Save the Net" contest.
Tags: Net Neutrality, Save the Net, Jeff Pulver
(c) 2006 Jeff Pulver. All Rights Reserved.
(This blog posting is copyright protected by Jeff Pulver. Portions of this blog posting may be quoted or abstracted if attributed.)
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Posted by jeff on April 25, 2006 07:16 AM | Permalink
Additional resources: Watch PrimeTime TV Shows | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos
Comments
I posted a link to the video contest to the Democratic Underground site. http://www.democraticunderground.com/ There's some good vidders over there.
Posted by: Annie at April 25, 2006 08:47 PM
We posted a link to your campaign; hopefully we'll be able to send a few visitors your way.
Posted by: VoIP News at April 25, 2006 06:39 PM
The "net neutrality" debate has crossed over to the political Blogosphere. This is a link from Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/24/201526/948, which is perhaps the most popular left political blog.
Posted by: Joe Garland at April 25, 2006 08:55 AM