William Tauzin: “there are two amendments before this House, both of which provide access for these competitive telephone lines to the…”

“there are two amendments before this House, both of which provide access for these competitive telephone lines to the new fiber and the new systems the Bell companies would deploy under this bill. The only difference is that the Cannon-Conyers amendment would put on those conditions all the rules and regulations that currently stifle the delivery of those services. Every high-tech representative in this town, all the associations that represent companies from Lucent to Motorola, and the two largest associations of all the high-tech companies of America, over a thousand of them, have written us letters urging us to defeat Cannon and Conyers, because what it does, it guarantees that broadband will not be deployed to people in this country without all those rules and regulations of the telephone industry regulating the Internet. That is why they want that amendment defeated. The Buyer-Towns amendment, on the other hand, gives those competitive telephone companies full access to those facilities of the Bell at fair rates set by the FCC, not by the Bell companies.”