IV
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. CON. RES. 173
Expressing the sense of the Congress that the Federal Communications Com-
mission should exercise its authority under the Communications Act
of 1934 to ensure that unaffiliated service providers have open, non-
discriminatory access to broadband facilities that enable access to the
Internet over cable systems.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AUGUST 5, 1999
Mr. MARKEY (for himself, Mr. CAMPBELL, Mrs. TAUSCHER, Mr. GEORGE
MILLER of California, Mr. DEFAZIO, Mr. STARK, Mr. GEJDENSON, and
Mr. LARSON) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on Commerce
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Congress that the Federal Com-
munications Commission should exercise its authority
under the Communications Act of 1934 to ensure that
unaffiliated service providers have open, nondiscrim-
inatory access to broadband facilities that enable access
to the Internet over cable systems.
Whereas the Internet revolution now occurring affects all
telecommunications providers and users and has the
promise to drive economic growth into the next millen-
nium;
Whereas the Internet is the focus of an extraordinary amount
of entrepreneurial commercial activity because it is a free
•HCON 173 IH
and open medium that allows businesses, whether large
or small, easy access to a global platform for electronic
commerce and communication;
Whereas consumer use of the Internet has been spurred by
the seemingly limitless amount of information available
and by the openness and ease of accessing such informa-
tion and providing information to others;
Whereas it is precisely this openness that has made the Inter-
net a global platform for innovation, creativity, and eco-
nomic growth, enabling people in all regions of the
United States to participate in electronic commerce at
relatively low cost;
Whereas the Congress, in approving the landmark Tele-
communications Act of 1996, endorsed in bipartisan
fashion a national policy of opening to consumer choice
markets that historically operated as monopolies, by
choosing competition, rather than monopoly-delivered,
regulated services, as the preferred means of promoting
consumer choice, creating jobs, and fostering innovation;
Whereas the Telecommunications Act of 1996 anticipated,
and further fueled, the growth of converging digital tech-
nology and services by treating competitive service offer-
ings on the basis of the services provided, in a tech-
nology-neutral way, and without regard to the historical,
regulatory antecedents of the provider of that service;
Whereas traditional telecommunications companies, cable op-
erators, and others have begun to upgrade facilities (or
build wholly new facilities) in order to bring broadband
Internet access to homes and businesses to better com-
pete in the marketplace;
•HCON 173 IH
Whereas consumer demand is driving this investment in
broadband Internet facilities;
Whereas impediments to competition, innovation, and con-
sumer choice in the provision of telecommunications serv-
ices retard the deployment of competitive broadband ac-
cess to the Internet and threaten the expansion of entre-
preneurial opportunity and economic growth;
Whereas incipient bottlenecks to competition for broadband
access to the Internet provided over cable systems will
stifle consumer choice and threaten innovation and ex-
pansion of entrepreneurial opportunity and economic
growth;
Whereas the continued failure of the Federal Communica-
tions Commission appropriately to adopt rules requiring
open, nondiscriminatory access to broadband cable net-
works will lead to the development of unfair competition
between two of the wires entering American homes—the
cable wire and the phone wire;
Whereas such a regulatory dichotomy plainly disregards the
intent of the Congress to rely not on the historical ante-
cedents of the providers of telecommunications services or
cable services, or the facilities utilized to deliver a service,
but rather on the nature of the service itself in deter-
mining its regulatory treatment;
Whereas the failure of the FCC to exercise its appropriate ju-
risdiction under the Communications Act of 1934 will
also force hundreds of local authorities to regulate such
services as cable services, undermining the goal of the
Congress to create a national framework for the competi-
tive delivery of telecommunications services, and incon-
sistent with the largely interstate nature of the Internet;
•HCON 173 IH
Whereas local authorities insisting upon and ensuring greater
competition in their cable franchise areas is highly pref-
erable to a national policy that fails to ensure a competi-
tive, nondiscriminatory environment for broadband access
to the Internet;
Whereas attempts to distort an open Internet platform into
a more closed system create a discriminatory corporate
filter for cyberspace that is also inconsistent with the
goals articulated by the Congress in the Telecommuni-
cations Act of 1996;
Whereas a departure from the open-architecture roots of the
Internet will adversely affect the prospects for electronic
commerce for both large and small businesses, for com-
puter hardware and software companies, and for elec-
tronic entrepreneurs;
Whereas a departure from the open-architecture roots of the
Internet will adversely affect the prospects for education,
civic engagement, health care delivery, and more in the
digital age; and
Whereas allowing cable operators to offer proprietary and dis-
criminatory access to the Internet only through affiliated
Internet service providers deprives consumers of the full
benefits of competition: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that—
(1) maintaining the Internet as a free and open
global platform for electronic commerce is integral to
the continued economic growth of the United States,
to promoting innovation, and to fostering further en-
trepreneurial activity;
•HCON 173 IH
(2) the development of discriminatory access to
the Internet by telecommunications carriers is an
anathema to the telecommunications policy goals of
the United States;
(3) the open infrastructure that currently
underlies the Internet should be safeguarded;
(4) consistent with provisions of the Commu-
nications Act of 1934, as amended by the Tele-
communications Act of 1996, the Federal Commu-
nications Commission should, within 180 days after
the approval of this resolution, exercise its jurisdic-
tion by completing a proceeding to ensure a competi-
tive, nondiscriminatory environment for broadband
access to the Internet over cable systems; and
(5) the Federal Communications Commission
should continue to seek to ensure a competitive, non-
discriminatory telecommunications environment that
ultimately benefits consumers, creates jobs, and
drives economic growth in the United States.
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