Tate Says Telecom Blurring with Media as Phones Deliver TV

Tate, speaking at the Quello Center for Telecom Management & Law, said the blurring of telecom and media has public policy implications in media areas such as children and family. “Parents should be the first line of defense but not the entire defense” against inappropriate content, she said. The media industry, she said, has given parents content-control tools such as prominently displayed maturity ratings for programs, V-chips in TV sets and parental filters on cable boxes. She said as media content migrates to new digital delivery systems, those new platforms should see what help they can provide parents in managing content.

But Tate said the first responsibility remains with parents: “Be the parent! Monitor your kids’ media use. Pay attention to what they're watching.” She said media’s main responsibility is “to follow the laws” governing decency. She said the proliferation of media content and outlets has other public interest implications, such as in the apparent link between media use and childhood obesity. “There’s no one silver bullet” that will protect the public from bad effects of media proliferation. She said it will take a combined effort by regulators, parents, and the industry.

“The emergence of new digital platforms to deliver video programming will allow consumers access to content where, when and how we choose to get it,” Tate said: “We face the question of how to adapt our media ownership rules to this new age.” Tate said the FCC in its series of cross-country media hearings will be looking at how people are getting their information and how they use media. She said any changes made to media ownership rules will remain consistent with the FCC’s guiding principles of competition, diversity and localism.

Tate said companies are responding to the evolving market with acquisitions such as the AT&T-BellSouth merger pending at the FCC. “We've allowed merger reviews to become a way to make law, and I think that’s a bad way to do this.” She said there’s been a tendency to make merger conditions into legal requirements applied across the board to companies not involved in mergers.

In response to a question, Tate said states have a vital role as telecom continues its evolution. “States have important police powers and expertise with consumer issues,” she said. “States should be able to exercise authority, but not necessarily state commission authority.” She advised state commissions to “ask yourselves what is your core competency.” She said state commissions should “build on your library of assets, information and contacts” in addressing telecom’s evolution and in working with the other parties affected by it. “But sometimes we need to speak with one voice. It’s not always just federal and state. Some matters are also global.”

On other topics, Tate said reform of universal service has engendered “much passionate discussion.” She urged everyone affected by universal service reform to participate in the FCC’s current proceeding on use of reverse auctions for disbursements and on capping the fund: “It’s now a $7 billion fund. We need to ensure it grows smarter and gets better at keeping phone rates affordable.” Tate said the recent spectrum auctions demonstrated that auctions remain the most efficient means for distributing spectrum. She said the auctions awarded 1,087 licenses to 104 bidders that collectively bid $14 billion. She said the auctions saw participation by big and small buyers.

Tate noted the FCC’s creation of a new Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau reflected the agency’s “keen awareness of how important communications are to pubic safety.” She said she spent part of Mon. at General Motors hq in Detroit discussing GM’s OnStar highway assistance system as a possible tool for public safety purposes. She said an important lesson emerged from the 9/11 attacks and the devastating hurricanes of 2005: “We heard again and again the need for redundancy in communications. No one communications method will be there all the time for everybody.”