FCC's Move Prompts Predictable Responses
June 17, 2010
| 2:58 PM
Reaction to the FCC's move Thursday to begin seeking comment on Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposal to reclassify some aspects of broadband as a telecommunications service is falling along predictable lines.
Broadband and telecommunications providers voiced deep concern with the move, saying it would stifle innovation and cost jobs. They say the issue should be dealt with by Congress not the FCC. The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate Commerce committees say they plan to craft legislation that would address questions in the FCC's authority over broadband created by an appeals court ruling in April. Genachowski offered his plan in response to the court ruling.
"Today's decision by the FCC is troubling and, in many respects, unsettling," AT&T's Senior Executive Vice President for External and Legislative Affairs Jim Cicconi said in a statement. "It will create investment uncertainty at a time when certainty is most needed. It will no doubt damage jobs in a period of far-too-high unemployment. It will also undermine the FCC's own goals for the national broadband plan."
Steve Largent, president and CEO of the wireless industry group CTIA, echoed this concern, saying ""We are disappointed that the commission continues to consider the application of monopoly-era rules for the U.S. mobile broadband ecosystem."
Taking the opposite view were some Internet and technology firms as well as public interest groups.
Google Washington Telecom and Media Counsel Richard Whitt said "broadband infrastructure is too important to be left outside of any oversight. Google, along with a dozen other tech companies, have written in support of Chairman Genachowski's proposed 'third way' as a straightforward way to protect consumers and the open Internet."
Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said, "Instead of succumbing to the paralysis a single court decision might have caused, the FCC is proceeding with a careful, measured, but proactive approach to protecting the public interest in universal and nondiscriminatory access to the public Internet."
Public Interest groups also applauded the move. Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said the FCC's "simple, uncomplicated action today makes certain that the expert agency in telecommunications has the authority to carry out its mission."
While most GOP lawmakers and some Democrats have criticized the proposal, Senate Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., praised Genachowski's plan and pledged in a statement "to assist and supplement that process with a focus on those goals." Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the FCC's move is "a step toward ensuring that consumers and innovators remain behind the wheel of the Internet, instead of the out-sized hands of a few big telecom companies."
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