WASHINGTON -- U.S. Senator Sam Brownback has introduced the Broadband Internet Regulatory Relief Act of 1999, which will ensure that those living in rural areas have high-speed access to the Internet.

“Congress needs to ensure that high-speed Internet access is being made available over the public telephone network as rapidly as possible,” Brownback said. “While asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) service is being rolled out in many urban and densely-populated suburban areas, most rural consumers do not have access to it.

“We need to ensure that high-speed Internet access is available to rural constituents as soon as possible. To accomplish this goal, I am proposing to provide regulatory relief to telephone companies willing to deliver broadband connections to rural areas.

“The ubiquity of our nation’s telephone network presents us with a tremendous opportunity to deliver high-speed Internet access to our rural constituents at a pace comparable with the rate at which urban and suburban consumers will be offered such service. But to realize this goal, we must remove unnecessary regulation that has impeded the rapid deployment of broadband networks. Advanced services should not be regulated in the same manner as basic telephone service. Broadband services are an entirely new market, one in which no company can exercise market power.

“In the absence of market power, the incumbents should not have to resell their advanced services or provide competitors with access to unbundled advanced service elements. And pricing regulations applied to telephone service should not be applied to advanced services. In addition, a competitive local exchange carrier willing to deploy the facilities necessary to provide broadband services should not be forced to resell its service.

“I am confident that we can ensure the rapid deployment of broadband networks to rural areas, but to do so, we must be willing to provide companies with an incentive to build out their broadband networks in rural areas. The Broadband Internet Regulatory Relief Act would provide companies with such incentives, and I hope that my colleagues will support this crucial legislation,” Brownback said.

This bill was introduced with Sens. Don Nickles and Larry Craig.