Former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth counseled future c...
Former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth counseled future commissioners to “follow the law narrowly” and said “grandiose schemes do not work” during a Tuesday panel discussion at a Phoenix Center telecom symposium. Furchtgott-Roth said before he joined the FCC a…
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“sage” telecom veteran told him telecom law is “infinitely flexible, infinitely elastic” and can be “molded” to fit any objectives. He said he came to disagree completely. “Uncertainty in the implementation of the law does more harm than any possible objective could rationalize,” he said. “Every time the FCC loses in courts it’s not just the FCC that loses, it’s the American consumer that loses. It’s the American investor who loses. Everyone who cares about the telecom sector loses.” Former Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, appearing on the same panel, said universal broadband deployment raises issues more complicated than most would imagine. “We have seen, for example, with wired in schools through the FCC’s USF program, that schools were wired and computers were put in a closet,” she said. “Why were the computers put in a closet? Because the teachers had not been taught how to teach using the Internet.” Abernathy said most in the U.S. have access to broadband: “It is the take-rate issue, and that’s the challenge.”