New ISP Coalition Seeks To Preserve Competition

From National Journal's Tech Daily 6/6/05
by Randy Barrett

A new coalition of independent Internet service providers (ISPs), vendor associations and public-interest groups has formed to fight for full competition in the high-speed Internet marketplace.

The new Telecom Summit Ad Hoc Committee includes CompTel/ALTS, Consumers Union, EarthLink, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), the Federation of Internet Service Providers of the Americas, and the Washington Bureau for Internet Advocacy (WBIA), among other organizations.

"What we want is to continue to have open access," said committee organizer Cynthia DeLorenzi, CEO of Patriot Computer Group in Fairfax, Va., and a WBIA co-founder. "We can drive penetration where they want to go." Currently there are about 6,000 independent ISPs in the United States.

Independent ISPs face a tough fight as the dominant telecom carriers such as BellSouth, Qwest Communications International, SBC Communications and Verizon Communications push for a rewrite of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The Bells want to end federal regulation of their networks, an outcome that ISPs and competitive carriers generally oppose.

Additionally, late last month the Supreme Court ruled that cable companies do not need to open their networks to broadband competitors, delivering more bad news to ISPs. DeLorenzi said the new group will press Congress to slow the telecom rewrite train. "We are urging legislators to back off a bit,"
she said. The committee also hopes to unify the message from the often-disparate ISP industry.

The new committee is self-funded, with members pitching in what they can, DeLorenzi said. "We see this as another opportunity for people to get together and work toward a common goal," said Earl Comstock, CEO of CompTel/ALTS, a group of Bell competitors and some Internet telephony firms.

"We're excited to have some other folks joining the fray." ITAA is eager to see a varied ISP industry survive. Its member companies provide the networking, hardware and software gear that make the Internet run.

"ISPs have played an important role in connectivity," ITAA counsel Mark Uncapher said. "Our concern is what's happening in the broadband world is the facilities of network providers are being leveraged to eliminate the independent ISPs."

Market diversity is important to Harold Feld, senior vice president of the Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm. "People should have the freedom to communicate without potential for corporate gatekeepers to get in the way," he said.

The new group plans to lobby Congress and tap into the grassroots power of its ISP-member customer base. "It's an opportunity to reach a group of folks who aren't necessarily focused on Washington," Comstock said.