U.S. telecommunications industry, government and free-speech groups agreed yesterday that the Obama administration and the new strongly-Democratic Congress should work to ensure that Internet access remains unfettered and available in all perts of the U.S. But they disagreed in how to achieve that goal.

The occasion was a conference on telecommunications law at the University of Nebraska.

Democratic Congressional adviser Frannie Wellings told the conference that the Obama administration would almost certainly introduce Net neutrality legislation: “With the Obama administration being extremely supportive of Net neutrality, we’re quite excited we can actually get things done.”

Telecom industry reps, however, expressed concerns that Net neutrality legislation might lead to more litigation, rather than simplifying the situation, if large numbers of neutrality violation compliants were filed.
Wellings also indicated that the new Congress will introduce legislation aimed at instituting universal availability of broadband access across the U.S.

Telecom industry reps observed that the goal of universal broadband might be difficult to achieve unless the U.S. government frees up wireless frequency spectrum which is not reserved for government use.

There’s also the question of where the money to build such a system would come from.

There’s definitely much more still to come on these issues…