CES Demonstrates Need for Regulatory Flexibility, McCormick Says
LAS VEGAS -- USTelecom President Walter McCormick said a quick tour of the massive floor at the Consumer Electronics Show will demonstrate to anyone who pays attention why the FCC should act on the group’s December petition for declaratory ruling asking the agency to determine that ILECs should no longer be considered dominant in providing switched access services. Others on a panel chaired by McCormick expressed hope that the FCC’s Technology Transitions Policy Task Force will mean the FCC becomes better able to keep up with the speed of technological change.
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"We live in an exciting time. It’s really a watershed time,” McCormick said. Virtually every device on the show floor will have one thing in common, he said. “It’s going to be a consumer device that’s broadband enabled, a device that in some way, shape or form communicates.” Many of the devices allow the ability to communicate via voice, he said. But “voice is just one application,” he said. “The commission reformed universal service to make it not about voice, to make it about broadband."
Commissioner Ajit Pai called for a transitions task force in July and those calls led to creation of the group a few weeks ago, noted Nicholas Degani, his wireline aide. “Instead of looking at [the transition] in 40, 60, 80 separate little dockets, each at their own pace, each moving when they happen to move, hopefully we'll be looking at this holistically,” Degani said. “As far as I'm concerned, that’s what we really need."
Degani said his first job at the FCC was dealing with the unbundled network elements platform. “That was a neat regulatory idea 15 years ago,” he said. “That’s not how competition is taking off in the marketplace. … Nowadays the competition for plain old voice services isn’t plain old voice services. It’s not even using the same infrastructure. It’s coming from cable companies … it’s coming from wireless.” Degani is hopeful the FCC will adapt to keep up with the rapid pace of change, he said. “The creation of the task force recognizes that there is an issue with how the FCC has been handling things.” It’s too early to know whether the task force will work as hoped, Degani said. “It got to. The marketplace is just changing far too rapidly for us to sit on our hands."
McCormick said he was encouraged by the development of a National Broadband Plan by the FCC, the USF reform order and the start of the task force. “We've seen the commission and the chairman moving to have the agency of expertise really fulfill its responsibility for engaging on the policy issues of the day,” he said.
Fred Campbell, president of the Communications Liberty and Innovation Project, said that in the U.S. the private sector has always built the networks. “If we're going to rely on private investment for our communications networks, we have to have policies that promote private investment rather than punish it,” he said. “A lot of these antiquated regulations are relatively anti-investment or not investment friendly."
"The Internet is analogous to everything and nothing all at the same time,” Campbell said. “That’s the point we need to get the policy to -- personalization and differentation in this era of broadband is perfectly fine. It’s adaptable.”
AT&T Global Public Policy Vice President Jeff Brueggerman said the traditional silos no longer apply. “We're following what our customers want,” he said. “They want mobile broadband. They want higher capacity broadband. They really want a seamless service that combines the applications and services they want over a wireless or wireline connection.”