Will Powell's departure spark public telecom debate? Successor has opportunity to make key business and privacy issues part of national conversation

America's Network, Feb, 2005 by Robert Poe

With FCC Chairman Michael Powell's announcement that he will resign in March, the focus turns to who will replace him. For most interested observers, the main concern will be the nominee's views on things like free-market competition vs. regulation, and how those views translate into commercial advantage or disadvantage for service providers of one kind or another.

But a less-recognized qualification may be more important: the ability to make the debate over telecom regulation part of the national conversation, rather than a largely behind-the-scenes argument among competing interests that only occasionally bursts into public view.

Take the cellular industry, which prides itself on paying strict attention to consumer concerns about things like privacy, solely for competitive reasons. CTIA President Steve Largent came out with a statement that praised Powell for knowing "instinctively that [consumers] were best served when free and competitive markets were permitted to function."

Yet the furor that erupted last year over cellular carriers' proposed wireless directory assistance (or "wireless 411") service, which led to a proposed law that would mandate the way users were included in the database, demonstrated how little the public knew of the industry's views and efforts on the subject of privacy.

PUBLIC DEBATE

If Powell had from the start of his term managed to conduct a broader public debate over not just privacy, but every aspect of the connection between the commercial interests of telecom service providers and the legitimate concerns and needs of individuals and society, the wireless 411 controversy might not have exploded as unpleasantly as it did.

One part of such a debate might have been about whether there was any way, or any need, to head off the industry's implosion of the last few years. Says Forrester analyst Lisa Pierce, who advocates such a national debate over telecommunications, "Powell saw the telecom bust. He had a first-hand seat to the carnage, but he didn't do anything to ask some fundamental questions about why it was going on, what could be done, and what the government's role was."

MARKET FORCES

Powell supporters might argue that not attempting to stop the collapse was itself a way of taking a strong position: specifically, that the government's role is to do nothing, and to let market forces do their work.

Countering that argument is one that says telecommunications isn't just any business. It performs a vital function in everyday life and national security, and thus requires special attention. And so on ad infinitum, the point being that having this debate, and making sure the general public was involved, would have been better than not having it. Even if the ultimate conclusion was to let the market decide everything, at least it would have represented a broad-based decision rather than a lack of one.

That will be especially important in dealing with the vexing challenges that lie ahead. The FCC will have to confront issues like the regulation and taxation of VoIP, balancing state and federal interests in telecom services, funding of universal service, regulated competition vs. deregulation, and intercarrier compensation, all sources of potentially contentious conflict.

Yet no larger framework exists to put such questions in context, like the one that brought about the original breakup of Ma Bell's monopoly. "Our country doesn't have a unified perspective on communications infrastructure, says Pierce. "It's very issue-driven."

Creating a climate that addresses these issues in a broad national discussion would take extraordinary leadership. But given how extraordinary are the times, both for the industry and the nation, it is vital to give it a try.