We need to change America’s telecommunications policy to factor in new technology and fierce global competition. The bill seeks to preserve and enhance universal service by creating a joint federal-state board to work out appropriate formulas to preserve universal-service subsidies in a newly competitive local telephone market. This does not mean preserving the income flows of local telephone companies at their current levels. But it does mean ensuring telecom service that is affordable for consumers.
Predictor: Markey, Edward
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, John Browning writes about key legislative decisionmaking expected to open networks to competition from top to bottom, quoting Rep. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance and co-author with Jack Fields (R-Texas) of a key piece of telecom-reform legislation known as the Markey-Fields bill. The bill would force former telecom monopolists to provide competitors with access to their wires, switches, etc.; would allow cable companies to provide phone service and phone companies to provide video programming. Browning quotes Markey: ”The question is: How can the modern telecommunications world maintain the best values of the old, while making room for new technological developments? The legislation I have proposed tries to maintain the three key parts of the Communications Act of 1934: diversity, localism, and universal service. At the same time we need to change America’s telecommunications policy to factor in new technology and fierce global competition. The bill seeks to preserve and enhance universal service by creating a joint federal-state board to work out appropriate formulas to preserve universal-service subsidies in a newly competitive local telephone market. This does not mean preserving the income flows of local telephone companies at their current levels. But it does mean ensuring telecom service that is affordable for consumers. We also include provisions for the joint board to look at updating the base-line level of technology which customers should have.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Universal Service
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Power PC: As You Read This, The Final Deals Are Being Cut On Radically New Communications Regulations. To Find Out What Rep. Ed Markey and Other Insiders Are Arguing About This Summer, Read On
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.07/markey_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney