Analysts Tell Congress to Go Big, Write a New Telecom Law
New York Law School analysts said the aging Communications Act has left the FCC unable to act on major issues without explicit congressional authorization.
Go Big: If Congress agrees on a plan to update the Universal Service Fund, it should not to stop there, according to Michael Santorelli and Alex Karras of the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School. They called on Congress to update the nation’s bedrock communications law to give the FCC clear authority over broadband and related services.
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In comments filed with the Universal Service Fund Working Group on Capitol Hill, Santorelli and Karras said the aging Communications Act has left the FCC unable to act on major issues without explicit congressional authorization. “The Act is woefully out of date and increasingly of little use to the FCC, which can no longer rely on courts deferring to its attempts to apply telephone-era laws to advanced services like broadband,” Santorelli and Karras said. (More after paywall.)
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