How will the new chairman of the FCC affect the telecom industry?
Created on: Jan 30, 2009 10:30 PM by Ralph DeFrangesco - Last Modified: Feb 2, 2009 11:47 AM by Patrick Avery
President Obama has selected Julius Genachowski as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Before being tagged for the FCC position, Genachowski was a cofounder of Rock Creek Ventures, a digital media and commerce advisory firm, founding partner of LaunchBoxDigital, and chairman and cofounder of Thummit. He has sat on the board of directors for Web.com, Ticketmaster, The Motley Fool, Beliefnet, Truveo, and Rapt. He was law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter and William J. Brennan. In addition, he was chief counsel to the chairman of the FCC from 1994 to 1997 – so he is qualified.
If Genachowski is confirmed by the Senate, he will have his hands full dealing with issues such as the transition from analog television to the new digital system, Net neutrality, and universal broadband.
Word on the street has it that the transition from analog to digital might be postponed. Obama is in favor of holding off with the conversion until June 2009 to give people more time to prepare. Although some feel that the coupon the government is offering to people to help with the conversion costs might be extended until at least the summer.
As you can guess, Net neutrality is a big concern of mine. I am definitely not in favor of ISP’s regulating Internet traffic. This is a very dangerous idea and will affect everyone that uses the Internet. Big Telecom companies argue that this will be a disincentive to upgrade their infrastructure if they cannot control the traffic that uses them.
President Obama is in favor of making broadband Internet available to every U.S. household regardless of where they live. President Obama obviously does not understand that unlike electricity, water, and sewer, broadband infrastructure constantly needs to be upgraded. This should be left up to the Telecom companies to extend broadband access into rural areas. The problem that I have is that the new administration will raise taxes in order to pay for universal access if the Telecom’s decide not to extend service. So that means that you and I will constantly be paying for upgrades to this system.
I think that Genachowski will have his hands full trying to restore the trust and leadership that the last FCC administration lacked. Communication companies will need to trust that the FCC will be open with their decision making process. The American people need a leader that will look after the interests of everyone involved in these critical decisions and not just succumb to an uninformed president and the pressures of big business.
Does anyone else care about these issues?
Ralph
says
in response to pc.name?html:
Charlie,
Thank you for the reply. This exactly what I was eluding to. The FCC has a history of closed door decision making. I hope Genachowski will be a different leader and bring everybody to the table.
-Ralph
Mike Jones
says:
We were gearing up to start a small leased access channel to serve our rural area because the new leased access formulas would make it financially feasible. When the new formulas were put on hold, we put our project on hold. We have an empty studio, idle computers, and an unemployed staff. I search for news every day as to whether the new lease rates will be upheld or scraped. Although we hope the new rates will become reality, a decision either way would be better than waiting in limbo.
Our cable provider would not even consider letting us deliver programming via broadband. They wanted us to deliver VHS tapes to their office or pay $1300.00/month to lease a fiber line from our office to their head end. This of course in addition to the lease fees.
Mike Jones
The IT Service Catalog Management Toolkit
Bridge the IT-business gap once and for all! A well documented IT services catalog is the conduit for IT services to the rest of the company.
The Complete IT Policy Kit
Download a comprehensive bundle containing over 40 IT policy templates. Each can be modified to align with your specific business requirements. Complete instructions are included.
I hope the new chairman will have the staff in Media Bureau finally begin discussing issues involved with leased access with those that actually avail themselves of airtime under the law.
It is evident from the appearance of numerous staff members at cable industry events they openly discuss matters of concern to cable. Yet they offered to grant our association one hour to discuss our problems.
They should always be open to discussion on how leased access is and is to be handled by cable sites.
Maybe, just maybe, openess will come about.
By the way, one of our main concerns is how cable permits us use of broadbanc to deliver IPTV signals to headends.