Panel eyes regulation of Internet television

Do old rules apply to new technology?

Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 20, 2006 at midnight

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BOULDER - As video increasingly is delivered through the Internet instead of cable or over- the-air broadcasts, the question arises whether laws that regulate traditional delivery methods should apply to the broadband world as well, according to a telecommunications panel appearing here Sunday.

Although Internet Protocol Television is still in its infancy, more than 56 percent of Americans have heard of the digital television service, according to a poll released last week by Harris Interactive. More than one-quarter of respondents said they're interested in the service for their television and 19 percent said they'd use it for their PCs.

"As technology evolves, it spawns intense semantic debates of interest only to lawyers. Which is a sign that the law needs to be changed," said Jon Nuechterlein, a partner at the law firm of Wilmer Cutler, at Sunday's Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program at University of Colorado Law School.

At issue is whether franchise and compulsory license laws, which apply to cable companies, should apply to the new entrants into the pay-TV market like telephone companies. Franchise laws are agreements with municipalities to use public rights of way such as streets, while compulsory licenses allow cable and satellite providers to retransmit broadcast signals.

The Silicon Flatirons conference comes against the backdrop of congressional hearings in Washington last week, where heads of Verizon and AT&T urged lawmakers to adopt national franchising agreements so the companies can speed up efforts to sell television service.

Cable companies have argued for preserving the local franchise system, saying changing it now gives telephone companies an unfair advantage.

The six-person panel also discussed whether Internet providers should be prevented from giving priority to their services at the expense of rivals - for example, blocking competing Internet- based phone services or putting preferred e-mail on a faster route.

The panel agreed that hasn't happened yet because there's enough bandwidth to handle the current traffic, but that might change if an explosion in streaming media congests networks.

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