Communications

At the end of the 113th Congress, lawmakers kicked the proverbial can down the road when they left the issue of taxing internet access to the 114th Congress.  Will 2015 be the year something changes?

The FCC has forsaken its mandate to be both expert and independent, Congress now has every reason to gut the FCC and radically downsize its regulatory scope and authority.

Regulating before we even understand if regulations are needed, what ends regulations might serve, what the challenges might be, or even a useful definition of what would be regulated  would be foolish at best, and likely to impede innovation.

Now the Obama administration is turning its attention to one of our few remaining problems: solving the puzzle of why the Internet has been such a massive disappointment.

Congress shouldn't try to combine the MFA with the Internet Tax Fairness Act, which would ban Internet access taxes, said IPI's Bartlett Cleland. If that happens, the "recent protests in Hungary opposing similar attempts will look mild compared to the anger of an electorate full of online consumers that deserves much better," he said.

Cleland said it's "remarkable" that broadband deployment has become a campaign-worthy issue for Branstad, Cuomo and others. "It's exciting because these technology issues are finally getting some of the attention that they deserve."

Bartlett Cleland said Seattle should be cautious about pursuing municipal broadband given a "highly suspect" track history for such projects.

There is "every reason to believe" that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions "will be consumed" by the ITU, said IPI's Bartlett Cleland.

"Its tendency to overreach its authority has been magnified by the Obama administration’s general contempt for limits on federal authority,” according to the Institute for Policy Innovation. “So we can most likely expect the FCC to once again divert time and effort to a quixotic and almost certainly futile legal battle.

The rent seekers have come running.