Fights over and about the tools we use to communicate are nothing new in Washington. Through the late 1980s and 1990s, long-distance giants fought with local telephone companies in Congress.

But times change, and technology adapted faster than Congress could keep up.

Today, lots of those long-distance giants have merged with local bell companies, and there's a new fight. This one is between telecommunications companies and big cable monopolies.

It's important to understand that as a result of those fights in the 90s, telephone companies have been competing with one another for more than a decade. That competition has lowered rates, sped innovative products' arrival in markets, and forced the companies to be better companies. It's also been the primary force behind many of the mergers that we've seen in recent years.

But technology has changed.

We have moved from an analog world built on copper wires to a digital one built on fiber optic lines. Most of the information that comes into our homes and offices today arrives as bytes of digital data. The wires don't differentiate between voice communications, Internet content, television programming and other forms of video. That's because each is being sent and received as nothing but complex lists of ones and zeros.

Only when the television or modem or IPod or telephone decodes the bytes does that stream become a communication that we can recognize.

Why does this matter? Because slowly but surely, the substantive difference between the products that the "phone company" provides and the products that the "cable company" provides is disappearing. Indeed, there is, even now, almost no difference at all. More and more, you can get phone service from your cable company and, in a handful of places, your cable television from your phone company. You can get your Internet access from either. Each is simply delivering data. And, as some sage put it, bytes are bytes.

So if the "phone companies" and the "cable companies" are providing what amounts to the same service, it stands to reason that they would have to play by the same rules.

Unfortunately, that just isn't the case.

Unlike the phone companies, which have been competing with one another for more than a decade, the cable companies are still protected monopolies. But even their protected status is a complex jumble. That's because cable companies primarily aren't regulated by the federal government or even state governments. The cable monopolies are regulated by more than 33,000 local governments, each with its own set of rules and procedures.

The result?

No competition means high prices that go higher every year. The patchwork of regulations makes it almost impossible for competitors to enter a market and drive prices down. The lack of competition also stifles development and deployment of new technologies because the cable monopolies have no reason to roll them out.

The Senate is now considering legislation, the Communications Act of 2006, which would finally ensure a level playing field. It would allow for greater competition, and that would mean lower prices and better service for consumers. The House has already passed a similar version, but the Senate is running out of time.

Hopefully, they will get moving soon. By passing the Communications Act of 2006, Congress can, if only for an instant, catch up to technology and take a positive step for every American who invites bytes into their home or office.