McDowell Sees No Need for Radical Therapy for FCC
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said relations remain “cordial” at the FCC even if this has been a contentious year at the agency. Speaking to reporters Thursday, McDowell said building blocks remain in place for a “healthy independent administrative agency” and he sees no need for “major reconstructive surgery” to reform the agency. McDowell also said FCC action is imminent on two DTV rulemakings.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
“If you're asking, ‘Do things get nasty personally?,’ they don’t,” McDowell said in response to questions on reports of tension on the 8th floor, including between himself and Chairman Kevin Martin. “This has been a very busy year for the commission, the past couple of months in particular. That can create a more tense atmosphere at times,” McDowell said. “I think it’s important for people to remember that the vast majority of what we vote on and what we do is by unanimous 5-0 votes.”
McDowell acknowledged he doesn’t get advance word from Martin on what issues are being readied for a vote or even on when the next agenda meeting will occur. “I don’t know if we're teeing up universal service or two-way plug and play… I'm sure I will know eventually.” He said he isn’t even certain when the January FCC meeting will take place.
On other issues, McDowell said he would support an en banc hearing on early termination fees charged by wireless carriers, as has been proposed by Martin. “More fact finding is always useful,” he said. He noted that the market has largely resolved the issue, since Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile have each announced they will prorate fees. “I'm encouraged on the ETF front by all the big four carriers all coming up with a private sector solution,” he said. “A lot of us at the commission have been asking them to do that and they've responded. While each plan may not be perfect, those are huge steps in the right direction.”
FCC Nearing Action on Two DTV Rulemakings
The FCC probably will act soon on two DTV rulemakings, one of them prompting concern among commissioners and in industry and stalled on the agency’s top floor (CD Dec 4 p6), McDowell said at the news briefing. He expects the order - for broadcasters to air public service announcements on the switchover and pay-TV sellers to print and distribute bill stuffers on the topic -- to get two votes besides Chairman Kevin Martin’s. Martin circulated the order on the eighth floor about two months ago.
Another order McDowell expects to get a vote soon deals with technical aspects of the transition (CD Dec 17 p1). Martin asked his colleagues to put the third periodic DTV review on the agenda for the Dec. 18 meeting, but they balked. McDowell said he needed additional time to review it. “It’s very technical in nature,” he said. “There’s a lot of granular detail involved and the commission and industry were still in discussions as to how to refine the item better. So from my perspective, it just wasn’t ready for the meeting agenda, especially given all the time and energy the entire media world here within the commission was [spending] focusing on media ownership.” McDowell said he’s “very hopeful” the DTV order “will be out very soon.”
McDowell defended the FCC’s handling of the media ownership order, assailed by the Democratic commissioners and by many members of Congress. Martin’s comments at Tuesday’s meeting showed he tried to deal with the Democrats’ concerns, McDowell said. “He’s been responsive to process suggestions or complaints throughout this.” Martin said he made last-minute changes to the order dealing with standards for getting cross-ownership waivers after he had met the previous day with public interest groups. In an FCC filing, Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America and Free Press said their providing Martin the waiver language shouldn’t be taken as support for the order. “It is not a position that we believe justifies further media consolidation,” the organizations said.
McDowell hasn’t made up his mind whether to support the DTV consumer education order, he said. Some FCC members have fretted over whether the commission has the power to require everything in the order (CD Dec 5 p6). But other commissioners are supportive, an FCC source said. The order could get a vote at January’s meeting, whose agenda isn’t final, McDowell said. “I think it will be voted on and probably voted out soon,” he added. “I've not yet voted it due to the crush of other business… At first blush, I want to be comfortable with the fact that we're actually prescribing specific language in a specific manner and look at the legal and constitutional implications.”
McDowell said he wants Internet service providers and peer-to-peer networks to come to terms on dealing with bandwidth-hogging downloads. Comcast’s approach drew a complaint to the FCC, but McDowell hopes companies can work things out without government intervention, he said. “We'll just mess it up,” he said. “I strongly encourage private sector resolution.” It’s not necessarily anticompetitive for network operators to act to keep peer- to-peer traffic from slowing networks, he said. “That’s good for consumers, because you don’t want your network to shut down.”