Telecom professionals had plenty to think about at last week's SuperComm 2001 mega show, but the Tauzin-Dingell bill currently tracking through the House of Representatives wasn't at the top of the list. Of the 511 SuperComm attendees surveyed by TelecomCareers.net, 79 percent were unaware that House Resolution 1542 (H.R. 1542), the Tauzin-Dingell bill, was currently being debated in Congress. Those results track with an earlier online survey conducted at Telecomcareers.net, where 68 percent of 1,031 industry professionals polled didn't know about the bill.
Tauzin-Dingell proposes to ease regulations in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, allowing the Baby Bells to enter long-distance data markets without opening portions of their local network to competitive use. Tauzin-Dingell passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee but recently was voted down by the House Judiciary Committee. That action will not kill the bill, however. In essence, the Judiciary voted to recommend against passage when the bill goes to the full House for a vote.
A competing piece of legislation, the Cannon-Conyers bill, has been introduced. The Cannon-Conyers bill upholds the 1996 stipulations and would prevent an incumbent local carrier with more than 85 percent market share from offering long-distance data services.
"The telecom industry obviously has its hands full right now," said TelecomCareers.net president Quinn Jones. "Companies are focused on funding, cutting costs and hiring key employees, while professionals are looking for ways to extend their own skill set and keep a sense of job security. Tauzin-Dingell is a bill of monumental impact that is flying under the radar with the demographic it will most affect -- telecom professionals."
Telecom pros aware of the bill were decidedly against it. The SuperComm survey found opposition of more than 2 to 1, while more than 90 percent of the online survey respondents who knew about the bill opposed it.
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