"Today the House will consider H.R. 1542, the Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act, more commonly known as the Tauzin-Dingell bill. As currently written, this bill is bad for consumers across the country, particularly consumers in upstate New York, and I will be voting against it.

"Although there has been a lot of rhetoric and misleading advertising about this bill, there has been very little attention paid to the basic fact that it will lead to higher prices. Apparently, the leaders of this Congress and my upstate New York colleagues have not learned from the history of deregulation in the telecommunications industry.

"The story of this legislation began in 1984 when a judge broke up AT&T's monopoly in long distance service. This at first resulted in healthy competition and lower prices for consumers. However, in the 1990s the 'Baby Bells', like Verizon, who had maintained their monopoly on local service, decided to jump into the long distance market. While you might assume that allowing more companies into the market would increase competition, in fact the opposite was true: because the Baby Bells control the local phone lines that go into our homes, they would have an unfair advantage over other long distance providers.

"Even the Bells realized that Congress would have to attach some strings if it were to allow them into long distance. After all, who could defend allowing the local companies into the long distance market without allowing long distance providers to compete for local service? So the Bells themselves devised a process by which they would be allowed to enter the market and handed the result to the Gingrich Congress, which incorporated it into the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

"According to the 1996 Act, the Bells would be allowed to enter the long distance market if they allowed their competitors access to their network of lines, thereby opening local markets to competition. Since they wrote this provision themselves, one would think they would abide by it. But instead, they have spent six years trying to repeal it.

"The 1996 Act was far-reaching legislation that deregulated most of the telecommunications industry, with promises of lower phone and cable rates and better customer service. I was one of only 16 House members who opposed the bill and I was proud to do so, because I believed that it lifted essential consumer protections and would result in much higher rates. Six years later, the promises of the 1996 Act remain unfilled. Phone and cable rates have soared with no end in sight.

"With Tauzin-Dingell, the Bells are trying to finish the job they started in 1996. The bill before us today would amend the 1996 Act to allow the Bells to provide long distance high speed internet data services, also known as broadband, outside their existing local service areas. It allows the Bells to exclude competitors from any individual element of their local network that has been upgraded for broadband use. It also exempts the Bells' broadband services from federal and state regulation.

"Proponents say Tauzin-Dingell will allow local Bell telephone companies like Verizon to increase the availability of high-speed internet services. But as it is currently written, the bill leaves consumers without any protections from poor service, unreasonably high rates, and unsolicited email or spam. It also fails to guarantee that all consumers will have access to these new services and virtually wipes out competition in the DSL market. It continues the consumer-unfriendly policies enacted in 1996, essentially handing the Bells a monopoly on a silver platter.

"Senator Ernest Hollings, Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has called Tauzin-Dingell 'blasphemy.' As Sen. Hollings aptly stated, 'Hailed as a way to enhance competition, it eliminates it. Touted as a way to enhance broadband communications, it merely allows the Bell companies to extend their local monopoly into broadband.'

"I agree with the bill's supporters that it is critically important to get high-speed internet services to under-served areas. There will be two amendments offered to this bill that would vastly improve it and I intend to support them. The upstate New York economy would benefit greatly from the universal availability of broadband technology. But in its current form Tauzin-Dingell legitimizes unfair monopolies. It brings us back to the days before the breakup of AT&T, and ensures that consumers will continue to face sharp increases in their telecommunications costs."

                                                                                 -U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey

Click here to look up more information about H.R. 1542, which passed the House on February 27, 2002.