The idea of the information superhighway independent and open to all is under threat. Corporate lobbyists have spent over $69m in lobbying Congress over forthcoming telecommunications bills, according to PC World. AT&T Corp, says the magazine, has accounted for more than $1.2m of this. Smaller firms are afraid they will be locked out; watchdog groups are concerned that more disadvantaged areas will be denied access, as they have been with cable. Congress is currently considering two major bills to supersede the Communications Act of 1934. The first is the National Communications Competition and Information Infrastructure Act – the Markey-Fields bill – which would enable cable and telephone companies to enter each other’s businesses. The second, the Emerging Telecommunication Technologies Act the Brook-Dingell bill – would enable local phone companies to enter both the long-distance and electronic publishing markets. According to the PC World article, the 10 legislators most involved in the deregulation accepted $867,161 from communications sector lobbyists during the same period, the magazine said. All in all, the magazine found that the five key Congressional committees overseeing rewriting of communications legislation have accepted a sum of $69.5m from industry.
