USISPA Connects on Conyers-Cannon Pro-Competition Legislation - United States Internet Service Provides Alliance - Brief Article

ISP Business, May, 2001

The United States Internet Service Provides Alliance (USISPA), the nation's largest grassroots network of small- to medium-sized ISPs and state ISP associations, praised legislation introduced by Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Chris Cannon (R-UT) that seeks to address the real problem in broadband deployment -- the Bell monopoly lock on the local loop.

"On behalf of the thousands of ISPs out there in the trenches bringing broadband services to consumers and small businesses across the country, we are greatly relieved to know that there are members of Congress out there who still care about competition. We would like to thank Reps. Conyers and Cannon for introducing legislation that will help solve the continuing problem of the local monopoly -- and not merely gift wrap it for the Bells," said Robert Davidson, chairman of the advisory board for USISPA.

Though the Bell companies have been required to do so since 1996, the Conyers-Cannon legislation would again require them to open their local monopolies to competitors. The legislation also addresses and makes available the key network elements necessary to provide broadband services. This is exactly the opposite of the proposed Tauzin-Dingell legislation, HR 1542, which lets the Bell monopolies out of every requirement to open up the local network to competitors.

"As a small, relatively, rural Internet service provider in Winchester, VA, I have to admit that we're amused at best that the Bell monopolies are telling Congress that they're the only ones who can deploy broadband across America. JSPs have been doing this for years, despite a whole slew of anti competitive tactics by the Bells, who didn't even want to deploy broadband in the first place. And now they want they want 'relief'? The idea that these huge companies -- who already overcharge and underserve, who have abandoned areas of the country like mine, and who are the only companies in America recording big profits right now -- need 'relief' in order to provide services they already provide or could provide if they decided to, is some pretty strange Washington math," said Mark Bayliss, president of VirtualLink, a Virginia ISP.

"The only 'relief' consumers need is relief from monopolies, not for them. It's simple: Tauzin-Dingell seeks to give monopolies relief, and Conyers-Cannon seeks to give competition relief. Politics aside, those are the facts," concluded Bayliss.

USISPA also praised the actions of House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) who requested in a letter to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) that the Tauzin-Dingell legislation be referred to his Committee, which has been active for years in consumer protection and anti-trust aspects of the telecommunications policy, and also participated in the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The USISPA is the nation's largest coalition of state and national trade associations and independent ISPs that includes more than 800 individual members. Independent ISPs are one the nation's largest consumers of telecommunications services, as well as critical suppliers of Internet access for millions of Americas.