BURNS SEES NEED FOR LAW EASING TELCO ACCESS TO PUBLIC LANDS
Sen. Burns (R-Mont.) said Congress needed to address rules governing telco access to public lands to ease carrier deployment of communications infrastructure including fiber cable and wireless towers, he told USTA conference Thurs. USTA attendees asked him whether Congress planned to take up issue, which they said could facilitate broadband service deployment, particularly in western states such as Mont. Burns said roadblocks industry faced in getting swift approval for public rights-of-way weren’t limited to western states, pointing out that W.Va. Sen. Byrd (D) had expressed similar concern on difficulties faced by telcos in eastern states. “I think we're going to need legislation to address all public lands,” Burns said.
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USTA members complained about regulatory control of broadband services, which they said could deter investment in broadband infrastructure projects. Burns said that he was “not quite where [Rep.] Billy Tauzin [R-La.] is yet” on broad deregulation of ILECs, and that he was going to concentrate on achieving “consensus on the Senate side” to properly regulate communications services and various technologies used in their provision of those services.
Burns also said he would introduce bill to remove caps on distribution of universal service funds, which he said was “absolutely critical for basic telecom services “ in Mont. He said bill would provide an “explicit statutory mandate” for universal service across country. Staffer said at our deadline that Burns hadn’t yet introduced bill, but intended to do so before close of Senate business.
House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.) told USTA that “government must act as an incubator, not an inhibitor, of new [communications] technologies.” He criticized Bush Administration plans to slash technology program funding and “has made an appeal to the Administration to leave technology education programs intact.” Upton said he intended to hold hearings on anticipated Tauzin bill that would enable Bell companies to provide data services across LATA boundaries. “What I will be seeking as this legislation moves is not regulatory parity, but deregulatory parity,” he said. “The wall of burdensome regulation needs to come tumbling down… regardless of the means of delivering service.”
Grant Stiffest, TIA dir.-govt. relations, said TIA opposed similar bill introduced by Tauzin and Rep. Dingell (D-Mich.) last year. “We remain concerned that the Tauzin/Dingell bill will not open up the local loop” to competition,” he said.