Gore is in favor of private industry setting the delivery standards for the emerging NII. He feels that there are likely to be only one or two broadband, interactive wires, probably owned by cable or telephone companies connecting homes, schools and offices to the NII. In the long run, this local loop may contain a wider set of competitors offering a broad range of interactive services, including wireless, microwave and direct broadcast satellite. But the exact specifications of the NII will be left to the industries providing the links.
He has one significant stipulation in this area: that the information flow bidirectionally. "Some highways will be made up of fiber optics. Others will be built out of coaxial or wireless. But -- a key point -- they must be and will be two way roads." [source] This may prove to be quite a battle if cable companies provide a large proportion of the NII wiring, as they are far more interested in product delivery than in two way communication.
The Administration's legislative package will grant the Federal Communications Commission the future authority, under appropriate conditions, to impose non-discriminatory access requirements on cable companies. As cable and telephone service become harder and harder to distinguish, this provision will help to ensure that labels derived from past regulatory structures are not translated into inadvertent, unfair competitive advantages. They want to ensure that no geographic region of the United States, rural or urban, is left without access to broadband, interactive service. Gore supports opening the local telephone exchange to competition, but not at the expense of dismantling our present national networks.
