Verizon executive vice president Tom Tauke said Wednesday that the Communications Act no longer fits the digital space and needs a major rethink.
That process could incorporate Congress, which will need to step in and clarify the Federal Communications Commission's jurisdiction over the Internet, or whether the Federal Trace Commission or some other agency will have the regulatory authority.
In a speech at the New Democratic Network in Washington, billed as a major telecom address, Tauke said that there is a new sense of urgency on the issue driven by efforts to seek new behavioral advertising rules across the industry and the Comcast/BitTorrent case that have raised questions about the FCC's jurisdiction in the Internet space.
He said that if the court in the BitTorrent case decides that the FCC does not have the authority under Title I information servce regulations, Congress will need to step in quickly, and he wants it to be thinking in broad terms.
Tauke said he understood that FCC chairman Julius Genachowksi will have a challenge if the court pulls Title I authority out from under him, but said he would be surprised if the agnecy tried to reclassify net service under Title II (which has mandatory access provisions). If it did, he added, it would wind up in court.
Tauke said that no one is suggesting the Internet should be the wild, wild west.
"We ought to have an Internet rule of law," he said, and Congress should determine that rule and who should enforce it," he said, noting that rule of law should apply to everyone in the Internet space, not just the networks.
Now is the time for Congress to address the issue, he added.
But Tauke said he was remaining agnostic about whether Internet regulation should be taken away from or kept within the FCC. He said it was not important what agency it was, but what the policy was, who would enforce it and how quickly it can be done. He said Congress can decide whether it is the FCC or the FTC or some new agency.
