With the House vote on the controversial broadband deregulation bill sponsored by Reps. Billy Tauzin, R-La., and John Dingell, D-Mich., scheduled for tomorrow, Senator Ernest “Fritz” Hollings attacked the legislation, calling it a “blasphemy” designed to extend the monopoly the Bell companies enjoy in local voice to high-speed Internet services.

Hollings accused the Bells of “stonewalling” for the past six years concerning the opening of their local markets to competitors. He also suggested the FCC’s current fining authority falls far short of the weight needed to force compliance with the competition requirements of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

“Time and again, the FCC and state commissions fined the Bells for violating the [14-point] checklist they wrote,” said Hollings in a statement submitted to the Congressional Record. “So far they have been fined upwards of $1.8 billion. But what do they care? The Bells merely write off these fines in their rates and continue their monopolistic conduct.”

Hollings suggested that competitive carriers already have been harmed by Tauzin-Dingell and would be “squashed totally” should the legislation be enacted.

“Just the threat of the enactment of Tauzin-Dingell has caused the capital markets to freeze their financing, and some 200 companies have dropped like flies,” he said.

While Hollings vowed to defeat the bill, the House rules committee today worked to identify the amendments that would be attached for tomorrow’s debate and vote. Of the nearly two dozen submitted, four are considered odds-on to make the cut, according to Jason Oxman, assistant general counsel for competitive carrier Covad Communications.

The flurry of activity was so great that House leaders are considering a postponement of the vote until Thursday to give more time for floor debate, the Washington Post reported this afternoon.

One of the amendments, submitted by Reps. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., and Steve Buyer, R-Ind., would preserve existing rules allowing CLECs access to Bell-company facilities. It would also allow competitors to share Bell copper facilities when offering broadband Internet services. In addition, the amendment would allow CLECs to connect their own high-speed Internet facilities to Bell company facilities.

But Oxman believes the amendment is the latter-day equivalent of a Trojan Horse, because of its language. The amendment purports to “guarantee” CLECs access to “customers serviced by Bell company high-speed networks at FCC-regulated rates and terms.”

Oxman accused the Bell companies of attempting to “confuse the members of Congress” with this amendment that “appears to actively serve the interests of CLECs.” Actually, all the Towns-Buyer amendment offers CLECs is the ability to resell DSL services at rates that would fall somewhere between total element long range incremental cost (TELRIC) pricing and the market-driven pricing the Bells are seeking, he said. Any services provisioned over fiber still would be off-limits to competitive carriers, should Tauzin-Dingell pass with this amendment.

“What’s the point for consumers of getting the same services under a different brand name?” Oxman said. “This would kill innovation.”

Other amendments expected to be part of the final version of the bill include the following:

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An amendment introduced by Reps. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., Edward Markey, D-Mass., Chris Cannon, R-Utah, Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Bill Luther, D-Minn., that would preserve the rights of states to enforce consumer-protection laws and would protect the investments made by competitive carriers in their networks by preserving the existing rules concerning the unbundling of network elements. “CLECs have hundreds of billions of dollars invested in their networks,” said Oxman.

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An amendment introduced by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., that would increase the FCC’s fining authority concerning violations of the Telecom Act to $1 million per violation--or each day of a continuing violation--from the current $120,000. It would also increase the fining cap from $1.2 million per violation to $10 million. These thresholds would be doubled for repeat offenders.

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An amendment introduced by Tauzin and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., that would require a Bell company to notify the United States Department of Justice 30 days prior to offering interLATA high-speed data or Internet backbone service originating in any in-region state for which it has yet to receive Section 271 approval.

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