Right man, wrong time

America's Network, Sept 1, 2004 by Kirk Laughlin

Michael Powell may seem to relish the opportunity to wear the hat of P.T. Barnum, but after four years of managing a regulatory three-ring circus known as the FCC, something has to give.

As chairman of the FCC, Powell has endured tongue-lashings from senators to senior citizens to shock jocks like Howard Stern. They have derided him for his stand on media ownership rules and for his calls to tame what he sees as indecent media content.

But the main event--for those of us in the telecom-information universe--has been Powell's steadfast belief that to nurture technology and curry the interest of investors, one must unleash the forces of the free market.

Powell has tried to consolidate his pontifications around his central "light touch" regulatory ideal. The problem is that Powell has run into a wall of resistance built around entangled legacy regulations, including a hobbled Telecommunications Act of 1996, sharply conflicting political agendas among commissioners, and debates about if and how regulators should act as protective guardians for disruptive technologies like VoIP.

Don't get me wrong. Powell surely doesn't need sympathy. A man of his background should have been less naive and more intuitive about the role he would need to play running an agency that simply is not able to adapt as fluidly as he envisions.

"Should haves", unfortunately, may become a bigger part of the Powell legacy in months to come. That's because, as our fine reporting in this month's cover story (pg. 20) explains, Powell appears to be headed toward a post-election exit from the FCC.

In my view, Powell's strengths outweigh his shortcomings, the most notable of which has been his inability to consistently broker unified FCC policy positions. Powell has shown a sort of enthusiasm over VoIP, broadband over powerline, and software-defined radio that resembles the passion of a Bell Labs engineer. Powell definitely gets the power of technology. And he understands that money needs to be invested to make technology work in people's lives.

But Powell has to work in Washington, not Murray Hill, New Jersey. That reality may finally be sinking in.

In the meantime, it may be worth the effort for the winner of the upcoming presidential election to establish two separate federal agencies to deal with two very different communications matters: a) the need to foster innovation and adoption of life-changing technologies and b) the regulation of media outlets and content. Although this concept is not new, it is worth examining again. Federal regulators who live in the service provider world should be wholly devoted to technology and ways to spur platforms for competition. Figuring out what's shocking on daytime television (as commissioner Michael Copps has done recently) should not be part of that charge.

Until senior elected officials fully digest the magnitude of the broadband opportunity, each of Powell's successors is likely to feel like a clown who has found his way into the wrong tent.