Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) Amendment in the Nature of A Substitute to Amendment of Pickering to HR 1542, the Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act of 2001." Date: April 26, 2001. Source: House Commerce Committee. Disposition: Ruled out of order.

Page 4, beginning on line 12, strike paragraph (20) and insert the following:

"(20) DEFINITION OF HIGH SPEED DATA SERVICES.---The term 'high speed data service' includes any telecommunications service delivering data, represented by a string of binary bits transmitted digitally as a series of zeroes and ones, but such data services do not include, under any circumstances, bits representing voice communications, even though such voice services are also expressed digitally as a series of zeros and ones, data services being digital bits of special importance. Someone, preferably a senior corporate employee with years of experience in analyzing zeroes and ones, shall posses authority to determine which bits are which as they zip through a network literally at light speed. All decisions of such employee may be challenged and brought to the attention of government officials, but only after a wee bit, and only bit by bit.";