Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Powell: FCC at major crossroads

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:22:00 -0400

Powell: FCC at major crossroads
by Glenn Bischoff

TelephonyOnline.com, Oct 14 2003

LAS VEGAS – Federal Communications Commissions Chairman Michael Powell today told
attendees of the U.S. Telecom Association’s conference here that the commission is
sitting at the most important crossroads in the 100-year history of
telecommunications policy.

Powell said regulators have a crucial choice to make. “Will this wonderful child
called the broadband Internet be given its own regulatory clothing tailored to its
needs, or will it be forced to wear Ma Bell’s hand-me-downs?” Powell said.

He added that he believes “unequivocally” that the technology needs a new outfit.
“The Internet is just like any youth; they don’t want yesterday’s fashions,”
Powell said.

Powell suggested the time had come for Congress to revisit the 1996
Telecommunications Act in order to bring it in line with a world that looks very
different than it did seven years ago. “The statute will break, if it isn’t
crumbling already, and it will need to be replaced,” he said.

He further said that convergence has created a situation where service providers
choose transmission platforms based not on what is best for consumers, but on what
provides the best arbitrage opportunity. Powell elicited quite a few laughs from
attendees when he joked that service providers today are doing whatever it takes
to be classified as an Internet service provider, to take advantage of the
unregulated status of that sector. “You all want to be called Vonage,” he said.
“We have to work on fixing that.”
While saying he had “tremendous regard” for state regulators, Powell said their
role should remain limited due to the interstate nature of telecommunications.
“There is a reason the Constitution has an interstate commerce clause,” he said.
“The founding fathers understood that you need supremacy in federal jurisdictions
for certain kinds of questions.”

Powell commented on the recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruling
that said the FCC erred when it classified cable modem services as information
services with a telecommunications component, rather than as telecommunications
services, which would have subjected them to common carrier obligations. Powell
called aspects of the ruling “flat wrong,” and said the court demonstrated that it
“doesn’t understand the technology.”

He concluded by stating that the free market approach to regulation is the best
approach, and said that anyone who believes that regulatory policy can keep up
with the pace of technology is “drinking something.”

http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_powell_fcc_major/index.htm
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