News & Editorials
Interview with Rep. Billy Tauzin (R.,La)
By Albert Eisele
News Summary

"The Hill" newspaper of Wednesday, November 3, 1999 ran a full-page interview by editor Albert Eisele with Rep. Billy Tauzin (R.,La), Chairman of the House Telecommunications subcommittee. In an highly interesting and all too brief excerpt from the interview, Tauzin displayed his broad command of the challenging subject of telecommunications policy. Tauzin asks, "How do we get Congress interested enough after '96 to want to undertake another big effort into finding a communications policy, that starts by recognizing that we didn't do this in '96. The Internet was only mentioned twice in the '96 Act. It was brand new. In fact, the browser was invented in '95. It was brand new on the scene. It wasn't considered in the '96 Act." The '96 Act is already "obsolete."

"Those old debates (about local and long distance telephone, video and cable) which still have telecommunications industries more regulated than any industry in America, are now in the way of fully deploying and using broadband services in every home in America.The reason they are standing in the way is deploying broadband is a hugely expensive proposition."

Tauzin is deeply concerned that there will be a huge "digital divide in America," especially in rural areas, with devastating consequences for educating children without the broadband Internet. "You either live in information poverty or information heaven," he declared.

Tauzin gave full credit to his former chief of staff, Wallace Henderson, for getting him interested in telecommunications in the first place nearly twenty years ago. If the interview was too brief, so is this summary. Please read the full text.