McDowell has called for a fundamental rewrite of federal communications laws calling them "outdated."
For more than a decade, the seven regional Bell telephone companies have been the fulcrum in efforts to overhaul the nation's communications laws.
The defeat could permanently doom what would have been a top-to-bottom overhaul of the nation's 60-year-old communications law.
The E-rate program grew out of the sweeping 1996 legislation that rewrote the nation's 62-year-old communications law.
There is "no sound reason to impose communications laws or regulations on the robust marketplace of Internet content, applications, and services."
He was the association's general counsel from 1961 to 1969, when he established a private practice in communications law.
Communications: Vote on a sweeping bill that would rewrite the nation's communications law.
Other communications lawyers say the relationship between communications law and regulation is not so clear.
It is the first time that a programming requirement has been included in the communications law.
I enjoyed it but wanted to practice communications law instead.