here is a copy of an email i received back from my emails for the
http://www.savemychannels.com
Dear Jeff:
Thank you for contacting me regarding telecommunications reform. These concerns are of central importance as Congress begins the process of debating the first major telecommunications reform in a decade.
In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act. This was the first major rewrite to the 1934 Communications Act. This congressional policy was intended to open up telecommunications markets to competition. At the time of the 1996 Act, the telecommunications industry was dominated by service providers that generally did not compete with one another: circuit-switched networks provided telephone service, and coaxial cable networks provided cable service. The Act created separate regulatory structures for each set of providers.
Our country faces a much different telecommunications industry now and telecommunications services are more vital to our everyday lives than ever before. Digital technologies have led to a convergence in markets as telephone, cable, and even wireless network companies are increasingly able to offer voice, data, and video services over a single broadband platform.
Almost all parties agree that the current statutory and regulatory framework is inappropriate for current market environment. But there is considerable debate over how to modify this framework. I will be guided by my commitment to promote innovation and the equitable development and deployment of our nation's communication infrastructure.
We must foster investment, innovation and competition while meeting the critical public policy objectives of universal service, homeland security, and public safety. Beyond being a purely technological issue, the expansion of broadband technology could be one of the most important social economic, and political equity issues of our time. If all Americans do not have access to digital technologies, our country will be unable to compete in this emerging Digital Age and our people will miss an opportunity to connect in a way that could greatly enhance democratic debate.
One of the central debates in telecommunications reform is over 'network neutrality' in physical networks, such as telephone and cable networks. Independent application and service providers, such as voice and video companies, are pressing for preservation of the Internet as a service that does not discriminate against any given website creator or provider of a service such as music, e-mail, or voice over IP. These companies claim that without network neutrality they will not be able to innovate and meet the needs of consumers. On the other hand, physical network providers argue that they have sunk huge up-front costs into the underlying structure of broadband networks – telephone lines, cable lines and the like. They say that to mandate network neutrality would discourage them from building out more networks in the future, and would be an inequitable distribution of income away from their businesses.
I look forward to playing a role in the telecommunications reform debate as it proceeds in this 109th Congress and the next. I am not on the Senate Commerce Committee that will make most of the decisions on these topics, but I have begun a dialogue with the Commerce Committee Chairman and Ranking Member on these issues, and will continue my engagement with them in the future. While it is too early in the dialogue to make final decisions about each of the issues involved, I can tell you that my overwhelming concern is to extend critical digital technology to as many people as possible, in as efficient and equitable a manner as possible. I am disinclined to support proposals that would discourage innovation and competition, and I am strongly inclined to back provisions that help working-class Americans have better, cheaper access to technology.
Again, Jeff, thank you for contacting me. I am glad you shared your concerns with me, and I will certainly remember them as this important debate continues.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
United States Senator
P.S. Our system does not allow direct response to this email. However, if you would like to contact me again, please use the form on the website:
http://obama.senate.gov/contact/
Stay up to date with Barack's work in the Senate and on issues of importance to Illinois. Subscribe to the weekly podcast here:
http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/
So those of us who went to the effort of getting waivers/signal tests should have to be cut off because you didn't want to take the time to do so? 
