The Senate Commerce Committee is prepping for a new chairman. Word this week is that Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.V., will replace Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye.

A little history lesson: Inouye became chair when the Democrats took Congress in 2006 (has it really been two years already??). Prior to that, now-felon Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, headed the committee for years. Inouye and Stevens were good friends and if memory serves, they often went along with each others’ policies, which created little intellectual tension.

The Commerce Committee hasn’t made much news on the tech front this past year; things have stayed pretty quiet under Inouye – as opposed to the net neutrality bustle under Stevens, which inadvertently highlighted his glaring lack of tech savvy (“The Internet is a series of tubes!”).

Jump to the present and consider a Rockefeller-led committee. He ought to liven things up if for no other reason than he’ll tick off people who want a regulations-free government (but who would probably line up for a bailout without a second thought). He’s said to be passionate about broadband deployment and privacy concerns, among other issues. He also has supported net neutrality legislation and there’s nothing to indicate that would have changed. Indeed, net neutrality is the big technology topic that is going to rise again like an uncooperative zombie.

If we’re lucky, Rockefeller will help settle net neutrality in such a way that it serves the industry and users well for the next 10-15 years (any longer than that and you’re looking at regulating technology that doesn’t even exist and that could be hampered by outdated laws.). That’s optimistic, I know. Net neutrality is contentious. But GovTrack classifies Rockefeller as a moderate Democrat, and certainly a level head is needed for wading through the net neutrality debates.

That’s the crux of the matter, too. Lawmakers and industry leaders must reach a compromise on net neutrality or risk getting mired in back-and-forth and tabled arguments that inhibit much-needed broadband deployment. Consumers need to be protected from unethical business practices, but businesses need to have safeguards against unethical users as well. I sense that Rockefeller understands those nuances and I hope he can help push Congress toward middle ground that works for as many parties as possible.

You’ve likely read that my colleague Tara and I are tackling a cover package on cloud computing. You must check out her blog this week because it sums up perfectly the existential distress through which we've waded trying to figure out what on earth – or not – cloud computing really is.

Well, I think I’ve experienced a breakthrough.

I can’t take credit for the following burst of realization – thank IntelePeer and INOC for helping me see the light – but here goes. (The simplified version)

Until about 2004, give or take a year or two, communications was hardware-based. Infrastructure was expensive and became obsolete quickly enough to keep the manufacturers profitable and IT guys frustrated. Then came IP, and hardware and software started to blend. That’s about where we stand now.

Cloud computing is the beginning of the search for the Communications Holy Grail, which is an all-software (minus the necessary computer terminals and phones) world. As John Hart at IntelePeer and Prasad Ravi at INOC explained it, separately, cloud computing uses an enterprise’s hardware to connect to – insert provider type here – applications. The enterprise is responsible for maintaining its hardware but the software overseer takes care of the additions, upgrades, etc.

The question of what type of company does this software oversight remains nebulous to Tara and me. Is it data centers, NOCs, telcos, cablecos, a mix of all of the above?

The Holy Grail is for someone like a Salesforce.com to offer all the applications an enterprise will ever need. That means a Salesforce.com will host the hardware and software, and businesses just have to provide the computers and phones. And that’s where cloud computing reaches obsolescence and morphs into Software as a Service (SaaS), as Hart and Ravi explained it. I’d been thinking the reverse – that SaaS fell under the umbrella of cloud computing.

So it looks like cloud computing isn’t the long-term objective of communications service. Nope, that’s SaaS, and SaaS has yet to arrive at its full potential and probably won’t for years. Cloud computing is the interim solution, another stage in the evolution of progress.

This probably seems basic to many of you ... but it’s a huge step forward for my very non-technical brain.

Thoughts?

This has been a big week for telecom, with the FCC canceling the intercarrier compensation/Universal Service Fund vote, and an even bigger week for our country. With a new president-elect firmly in place, we can get a better idea of Obama’s impact on the telecom industry. Here’s a list of pros and cons from the Voice Report, distributed this week. What do you think of its observations?

Four downsides for enterprise telecom pros:

1. The financial crisis and recession hits the government pocketbook – federal, state and local – hard, and that means they’ll be looking for new fees and surcharges to levy, with many directed specifically at businesses. Communications services have always been a popular target (remember FET?). Expect Obama and the Dems to look hard at burdening enterprises with a new round of business-specific fees, and that means your bottom-line budget will be under pressure.

2. Lawmakers will be extremely reluctant to pass any legislation that draws down government revenues. And while Republicans will be hard pressed to stop any initiatives, it still will take experienced legislative maneuvering to get any bills through ... even for modest reductions in revenue. Look for bills like those that would remove cell phones from “listed property” (H.R. 5719 and S. 2668) or curtail taxes on wireless services (H.R.5793 and S. 3249) to die in committee, unless Obama proves to be a wizard on Capitol Hill.

3. Expect the net neutrality debate (along with the “digital divide” issue, see No. 6 below) to heat up with neutrality proponents coming out on top. That means communications services you use that “touch” the public Internet – like commercial VoIP – will be exposed to slower performance and poorer reliability as residential users consume more and more bandwidth.

4. Dems are strong proponents of privacy protections ... and while most of the debate will focus on service providers complying with current and new legislation, don’t be surprised if this trickles down to heightened and more pervasive corporate compliance regulations for e-mail, voice mail and electronic document handling.

Four very positive upsides:

1. The FCC will turn Democratic and look less favorably on lessening or eliminating regulations and relying on the free market to produce a reasonable level of competitive choice. This is very good news for enterprise users struggling with a very consolidated – near duopoly – market.

2. Broadband availability and penetration will move up in the national and political consciousness as eliminating the “Digital Divide” – and the perceived social and economic benefits to individuals – becomes an Obama priority. This will spur accelerated development of new broadband technologies, like WiMAX and BPL, and that broader (and presumably less expensive) availability will benefit business users. You’ll also see more oversight of broadband deployment, like the recently passed Broadband Data Improvement Act.

3. Pro-consumer initiatives – with some pass-throughs for businesses – will pick up steam under Obama. The Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act is a good example. Aimed directly at halting early termination fee (EFT) abuses, it has languished in Congress since 2007, even though it is a political no-brainer. And while the chief beneficiaries are consumers, enterprises stand to benefit as well.

4. Obama will be the first “digital” president. He proved that with his exceptional use of the Internet and mobile technologies to recruit volunteers, get out the vote and raise unprecedented sums of money for his campaign. You’ll see his administration drive that expertise throughout government. For you, it means a big push to digitize all dealings with government. Add the likelihood of greatly expanded government regulation in areas as diverse as financial reporting and the environment to health care and employee benefits. That means a potential explosion in information systems and related bandwidth demands. Net result: more pressure (and greater criticality) of your LANs and WANs.