roundtable: Urging An Advanced Universal Service Goal

roundtable: Urging An Advanced Universal Service Goal

Urging An Advanced Universal Service Goal

Ruth Holder (holder@apt.org)
Wed, 17 May 1995 16:16:38 -0400 (EDT) 

Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 16:16:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ruth Holder <holder@apt.org>
Subject: Urging An Advanced Universal Service Goal
To: roundtable@cni.org
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9505171550.C20452-0100000-0100000-0100000@idi.net>


Dear 'Net Friends,

I'd like to share with you the Alliance for Public Technology's letter 
to the House Commerce Committee (attached below).  The current House
telecommunications reform legislation (H.R. 1555) does not contain a
national policy goal for universal service in the information age, and 
we urge that one be included.  If you'd like to add your voice to ours,
please contact me directly (holder@apt.org).  

APT's "Principles to Implement the Goal of Advanced Universal Service," 
referenced in our letter, are available on APT's Web/Gopher/FTP server 
(the URLs are in my signature file).  We welcome your comments and 
support.  Thanks!  Take care, Ruth

Ruth Holder
Alliance for Public Technology (APT)	|   Internet:	holder@apt.org
901 15th St. NW #230                    |   202/408-1403 (voice/TTY)
Washington, DC  20005                   |   202/408-1134 (fax)

For more online information about the Alliance for Public Technology:
http://apt.org/apt.html
gopher://apt.org:1600
ftp://apt.org/pub/Alliance_for_Public_Technology_APT


May 12, 1995

The Honorable Thomas Bliley
U.S. House of Representatives
2241 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC  20515-4607

The Honorable John D. Dingell
U.S. House of Representatives
2328 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC  20515-2216

The Honorable Jack Fields
U.S. House of Representatives
2228 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC  20515-4308

Dear Congressmen Bliley, Dingell and Fields:  

The Alliance for Public Technology (APT) appreciates your 
leadership in crafting legislation to encourage the rapid 
deployment of new telecommunications technologies.  We 
applaud your efforts to get major telecommunications reform 
legislation through this year.  Without national legislation, serial 
deregulation of telecommunications will continue in the courts, 
which we believe does not well serve the consumer.  

APT strongly believes that a clearly articulated national goal of 
advanced universal service must be included just as it was in H.R. 
3636 last year.  We recommend a universal service goal to 
promote and encourage the availability of a high capacity, 
switched telecommunications network that will enable all the 
people of the United States, regardless of location or disability, to 
originate and receive affordable and accessible high quality voice, 
data, graphics, video and other types of telecommunications 
services.  We urge you to please include this language in H.R. 
1555 so that it reflects your own efforts last year and mirrors the 
goal language in the Pressler bill (S. 652) this year.  

The incorporation of such a goal in your bill is essential to ensure 
that every community and residence in the United States can look 
forward to ultimate connection to the "information superhighway," 
that information providers are clear that ultimately their products 
will reach a national audience, and that specific minority and other 
groups of individuals can be assured that it is not national policy 
to enable them to be "redlined" off of the superhighway.  

APT is a grassroots membership organization of about 300 
individuals and nonprofit organizations.  It is dedicated to 
ensuring consumer access to the benefits of advanced 
telecommunications services which the new information 
technologies make possible.  To this end, we have recently issued 
the attached "Principles to Implement the Goal of Advanced 
Universal Service."  

APT recognizes that H.R. 1555 seeks to balance a set of highly 
complex and divergent interests, and we are anxious to work with 
you in achieving that balance.  Passage of telecommunications 
reform legislation this year is in the best interest of the entire 
nation.  Please call on us if we can be of any assistance.  

Sincerely,


Barbara O'Connor, Chair

Mary Gardiner Jones, President

Enclosure

cc:	
Hon. Joe Barton
Hon. Brian P. Bilbray
Hon. Michael Bilirakis
Hon. Rick Boucher
Hon. Sherrod Brown
Hon. John Bryant
Hon. Richard M. Burr
Hon. Thomas A. Coburn
Hon. C. Christopher Cox
Hon. Mike Crapo
Hon. Peter Deutsch
Hon. Anna Eshoo
Hon. Gary Franks
Hon. Daniel Frisa
Hon. Elizabeth Furse
Hon. John Gregory Ganske
Hon. Paul E. Gillmor
Hon. Bart Gordon
Hon. James Greenwood
Hon. Ralph M. Hall
Hon. J. Dennis Hastert
Hon. Ron Klink
Hon. Scott Klug
Hon. Blanche Lamburt Lincoln
Hon. Thomas J. Manton
Hon. Edward J. Markey
Hon. Carlos J. Moorhead
Hon. Charles W. Norwood Jr.
Hon. Michael G. Oxley
Hon. Frank Pallone Jr.
Hon. Bill Paxon
Hon. Bobby Rush
Hon. Dan Schaefer
Hon. Cliff Stearns 
Hon. Gerry E. Studds
Hon. Bart Stupak
Hon. W. J. Tauzin
Hon. Edolphus Towns
Hon. Frederick S. Upton
Hon. Henry A. Waxman
Hon. Richard A. White
Hon. Edward Whitfield
Hon. Ron Wyden

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