On July 30, the
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee voted to approve the nomination of Tom Wheeler to be Chairman of the FCC.
The nomination was the subject of a June 18 hearing, which came just a few days after the Free State
Foundation's "If
I Were the FCC Chairman"
lunch seminar. Of course, Mr. Wheeler's name
figured into the FSF seminar panelists' discussion of
what they would do if they happened to be the new FCC Chairman.
The FSF seminar panelists offered
some distinct yet insightful perspectives on understanding the dynamics of technological
change, policy imperatives for the new FCC Chairman, and the characteristics
that Mr. Wheeler might bring to the agency. Their views are worth considering
as the nomination process proceeds to the full Senate.
On the seminar panel were Gail
MacKinnon, Executive Vice President and Chief Government Relations Officer,
Time Warner Cable; Craig Silliman, Senior Vice President for Public Policy
& Government Affairs, Verizon Communications; and Gigi B. Sohn, President
& CEO, Public Knowledge. Their exchange, taken from an edited transcript of the event, follows below.
FSF President Randolph May,
moderator for the seminar panel, prefaced the ensuing discussion by pointing to
his May 9 Washington Times op-ed:
MAY: I wrote this piece called "A Historian for the FCC." It basically looked at Tom Wheeler's
avocation as a historian. As you know,
one of his books focused on the role the telegraph played in winning the Civil
War. And essentially I was making a
point that I hope he would look at history and realize we're a long way from
the telegraph and some other things…. So one of the questions I'm going to ask
these panelists later, probably, would be to put on their historian's hat and,
with that in mind, think about the way that they would frame their
administration if they were the chairman.
A bit later on, the panel turned
to the subject of the FCC Chairman nominee:
MAY: I want the panelists briefly to describe what
character traits they think a new chairman should have, what's important for
success for the new chairman in terms of the way he operates the Commission and
the character traits he brings to that.
[W]e know that Tom Wheeler's a historian. That's something that's been an important
part of his life. Is there anything in
terms of the way that you think he should, as a historian, think about the job
and that you would share with us?
The seminar
panelists' responses:
MACKINNON: Being a historian is a real asset, because as one
senior entertainment executive once said to me, "It's the history you
don't know that will kill you."
Tom Wheeler's been around for a long time. He is somebody who knows how business works
and he's a very thoughtful, deliberative human being. I don't know him, personally, but what I've
been told is he's open-minded and collaborative. Those are very essential characteristics for
somebody who is coming over and presiding over the industry, looking at
industry on a daily basis.
SILLIMAN: It would be
presumptuous for me to speculate on how people think about the job and how Tom
Wheeler will do. But the scope of history
is an interesting question for our industry that has a couple of angles.
One is that communications technologies throughout the
scope of history have served an empowering, enabling role, for people to spread
and disseminate ideas, to open up their horizons to people beyond their direct
physical proximity. That spread of ideas
has unleashed a whole round of human innovation, freedom, and other
empowerment. It's tremendously exciting.
The second lesson would be people sitting around ten years
before Gutenberg came up with the printing press, or ten years before the
development of the telegraph. People could no more foresee the technological
changes that would be wrought and the societal changes that would be wrought
ten years hence than we can here today.
We often feel, and rightfully so, that we are at the
cutting edge of technology. And we
are. But we also have to remember that
the cutting edge is constantly moving out ahead of us. We are six years into the smartphone
revolution. 15 to 18 years ago, if you
were an early adopter and you had dial-up Internet and maybe an analog cell
phone, the idea that we could foresee 10 years, 15 years out what may be coming
would be the ultimate hubris. I don't
think we can foresee years out now.
I think that's tremendously exciting, because we are going
to see huge breakthroughs in the areas of energy management, education,
healthcare. A lot more things are going
to be enabled by these communications technologies. But in the policy realm what I would take
from the sweep of history is: don't ever assume that standing in the static
point, where we are today, that we can see out over the horizon 5, 10 years in
an environment that has been characterized by this pace of technological change,
either from the straight technology perspective, or the larger societal
benefits perspective. When you're looking at these issues, don't make the
mistake of locking yourself into today's vision of today's technology. Make sure you have a framework that will
evolve at the same rate as technology.
SOHN: The FCC chair has got to be a leader, and he has to
have an agenda. Within the first 30
days, he needs to get up there and say, "This is what I want to do and
this is why." I've even said this
to Tom Wheeler….
He also needs to pick good people; people that really know
the agency, not his best friends from college or the Supreme Court, or wherever
else; people that care about this stuff and people that know how to run the
agency. As far as a historian is
concerned, he needs to look at the history of broadcasting. He needs to look at the history of cable and
see the consolidation that's taken place.
Broadcasting was first proposed to be a common carrier
service, believe it or not. And Congress
decided to do this public interest obligation thing, which hasn't worked out
all that well. Cable also started out
not that vertically integrated in the 1984 Cable Act. They were allowed to own the programming on
their systems. Both of those were huge
policy mistakes. And the chair needs to
learn that the Internet cannot become the same thing.
The Internet is the most empowering technology we've ever
seen. But if it falls under the control
of just a few hands or some really bad countries, it's not going to be
that. I started out 20-some-odd years
ago trying to make broadcasters and cablecasters obey their public interest
obligations. Having completely totally
failed at that, I look to the Internet as being the solution to the problem of
top-down command-and-control media. And
it's got to stay that way.
For my part, I think it
imperative the FCC Chairman actively takes a free market-oriented approach to
communications policy. It's no secret that the communications industry is critical
to our nation's prosperity. "One-sixth of the American economy can be directly
linked to the industries the FCC regulates," according to Acting FCC
Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn. And due to the ability of information technologies
to offer new capabilities, enhance productivity, and increase efficiency, most
of the remaining five-sixths of the economy can be indirectly linked to the
communications industry. In light of the innovative and competitive conditions
that now prevail concerning communications services, a market-based approach
can better enable additional waves of creative and competitive breakthroughs
than last-century's monopoly-era regulatory approach.
A free
market-oriented approach to communications policy, in short form, includes the
following: (1) recognition that today's rapidly-changing digital communications
market has replaced the last-century, analog-era monopolistic assumptions upon
which most of the FCC's regulatory apparatus is based; (2) seriousness in
pursuing elimination of outdated regulations that can no longer be justified
and that threaten to reduce or block further innovation and investment; (3)
strong preference for technologically neutral policymaking that eschews silo
treatment of different industry segments and recognizes the reality of
intermodal competition between platforms; and (4) heavy presumption against new
regulatory controls over dynamic products and services unless clear evidence of
market failure and consumer harm can be demonstrated.
With his
broad background in communications policy as well as the history of technology,
Mr. Wheeler has all the intellectual tools and experience necessary to pursue a
free-market approach as FCC Chairman. Of course, effectively implementing such
an approach – amidst disputes over how to design spectrum license auctions,
appellate litigation over network neutrality regulations, the ongoing IP
transition, and questions over the future of forbearance and legacy regulations
– involves successfully addressing many practical challenges.
In any event, the viewpoints
offered by the three panelists at FSF's "If I Were Chairman" seminar –
all of whom are nationally prominent in the communications policy realm and
known for their expertise regarding the FCC – were thought-provoking and
stimulating. Worth keeping in mind as Mr. Wheeler's nomination moves toward a
final vote by the Senate.
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