Recent News + Events

The FCC voted to suspend its rules on pricing flexibility in the special access market on Thursday, citing the need for updated data collection from service providers.

The current rules, adopted in 1999, were intended to increase competition in the special access market. But a truly competitive marketplace never materialized, allowing legacy monopoly carriers to charge a premium to all businesses that must rely on these basic telecom connections for sending and receiving high volumes of data in daily operations.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association appreciates the excellent work of the Justice Department and the FCC in reviewing a complex deal struck by Verizon and its largest cable competitors that would surely be rejected if it took the form of a merger. 

Unfortunately, the remedies prescribed by the Justice Department are no match for the powerful business incentives of these dominant network operators/Internet access providers to carve up wireless and geographic landline markets for their mutual benefit.  We hope the FCC is considering stronger interconnection and interoperability conditions that will give existing landline telcom and wireless competitors a chance to survive, because there is no real hope for any new entry into the broadband Internet access business in the U.S.

The following statement can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Ed Black:

Two members of Congress have introduced legislation to help innovators combat patent trolls. The bill, dubbed the SHIELD Act (Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act) or HR 6245, co-authored by Congressmen Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, would allow tech companies to recover litigation costs for nuisance lawsuits where the plaintiff made legal claims that had little chance of succeeding.

Despite current economic conditions, Congress seems to be proceeding with a new tax collection mandate. On Aug. 1, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will hold a hearing on Internet sales taxes.  The Computer & Communications Industry Association continues to oppose legislative efforts to shift the burden of tax collecting requirements to online retailers regardless of physical presence.  CCIA believes that drafting online vendors into service as remote sales tax collectors in a ham-handed attempt to impose a one-sided version of “fairness” is unjustified and unwise. 

The Computer & Communications Industry Association continues to oppose H.R. 3179, the Marketplace Equity Act, on which the House Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing July 24.  The bill would allow states that have fulfilled certain simplification requirements to require out-of-state retailers to collect sales and use taxes on purchases made to residents of their states, regardless of physical presence.  However, this “simplification” would still leave in place thousands of different state and local tax jurisdictions that online retailers would have to comply with.  The bill would impose tax collection burdens on small Internet businesses, which are some of the most promising candidates for future economic growth.