Posted on 07/21/2011 2:02:15 PM PDT by markomalley
A trade group for major phone companies including Verizon and AT&T wants Congress to slap new regulations on Facebook.
Walter McCormick, the president of U.S. Telecom, called on lawmakers Thursday to subject online companies that provide communications services to the same regulatory burdens as the phone industry.
"It's a tale of two networks--ours, built on wireline networks, and theirs built on software," McCormick said, speaking on a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council conference.
While phone companies face countless state and federal regulations, "Facebook is free of any regulation whatsoever," McCormick said. He pointed out that Facebook's user base of 750 million outnumbers that of any single phone company, and that the company now provides voice capabilities through a partnership with Skype.
Congress should update telecom law in a way that equalizes the regulatory burdens on Internet companies and telecom companies, McCormick said. "We need to have laws that don't advantage or disadvantage particular networks," he said.
Most tech and telecom stakeholders acknowledge that it would be useful to update telecom laws, which haven't been overhauled in 15 years, to reflect the rise of the Internet. But the agreement ends there, and analysts see Congress as unlikely to take a crack at major telecom legislation any time soon.
How about, DE-regulate everyone. The rationale for telephone company regulation went by the wayside years ago. Lots and lots and lots of competition. The fact that these executives’ knee-jerk reaction is to regulate shows how comfortable they are with crony-capitalism where the government sets the playing field.
My first thought as well - the only reason they dont want the deregulation is due to the competition they would see. Regulation is all about barriers to entry for new competitors - its pay for play 90% of the time and good intentions maybe 5% - the rest is just trying to get a dime.
I think it’s a critical need that Facebook users pay their fair share of the tax for the Spanish American War.
< / s>
Especially since the only surviving warship from the Spanish-American War needs the money.
The looters are looking for a political solution to their inability to compete by legally hobbling their competition. When they are done,
Facebook will be an application to delete. The network traffic that Facebook generates that becomes billable usage will also decrease.
Be careful what you ask for...you might get it.
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