TECH LEGISLATION Proposed Phone-Line Access Law Pits Data Vs. Voice.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: Antonio A. Prado

A plan before Congress to boost broadband buildout may have the unintended effect of quashing the nascent Internet telephony market, some analysts say.

Critics of the Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001 also say it will be the last nail in the coffin for the competitive digital subscriber line industry.

On its surface, the measure lets former Bell phone companies deliver Net services, or data packets, over long distances.

Current law forces local phone companies that sell DSL services to hand overlong-distance data traffic to other firms' fiber networks, or backbones.

Lifting this mandate is supposed to encourage the former Bells to upgrade more of their networks to handle high-speed data, says Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La.

It gives an economic …