WASHINGTON-In a bold speech with profound and far-reaching policy implications, new Federal Communications Commission Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Michele Farquhar said she will pursue policies to help wireless carriers compete not only with each other but with local landline telephone companies as well.
“My main priority, which I received directly from Chairman [Reed] Hundt, is making sure that the Wireless Bureau becomes an equal partner in the effort to establish rules and policies to foster local exchange competition, as well as within CMRS (commercial mobile radio service),” said Farquhar at a Dec. 6 policy conference sponsored by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
It was Farquhar’s first public address since resigning as acting deputy director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration last month to take over the reins of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau from Regina Keeney, who has become chief of the Common Carrier Bureau. Former Common Carrier Bureau chief Kathleen Wallman moved to the White House to serve as deputy counsel.
Making local competition-a cornerstone of telecommunications reform legislation nearing passage in Congress-a driver of wireless policymaking represents a fundamental shift away from the traditional approach of regulating wireless telecommunications as a self-contained industry.
In that regard, the FCC last Friday proposed rules to govern interconnection between commercial wireless carriers and monopoly local exchange carriers.
Farquhar, who prior to her NTIA post served as a legal aide to former FCC Commissioner Ervin Duggan and later as director of regulatory affairs at CTIA, said final guidelines are expected to be issued next summer.
“An interconnection policy that is only marginally different from prior common carrier decisions and focused solely on cost recovery does not establish an immediate goal of fostering competition,” Farquhar said.
Farquhar laid out her regulatory agenda and underlying philosophy for carrying it out. She vowed to aggressively confront wireless issues pending before the agency, with or without direction from Congress, and to put more effort toward spectrum management and planning. FCC wireless policy, Farquhar noted, currently is made on a docket-to-docket-basis without the benefit of the kind of overarching approach that NTIA traditionally has performed.
As such, Farquhar is expected to be more of an activist than the well-regarded Keeney and more engaged with wireless issues than her predecessor. She said the bureau should be more involved in spectrum management and planning, a role today performed predominantly by NTIA, which advises the White House on telecommunications policy and oversees federal government spectrum.
In addition, Farquhar said she hoped her bureau and others within the FCC will work together better than they have in the past. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, for example, is providing input on the LEC-CMRS interconnection initiative headed by the Common Carrier Bureau.
But with a strong emphasis on auctions and wireless competition continuing under Farquhar, private wireless users’ oft-stated objections to having their spectrum and operational requirements left to market forces are expected to continue.
“There still is a role for government to ensure there are level playing fields,” said Alan Shark, president of the American Mobile Telecommunications Association.
Farquhar, for her part, pledged to give private wireless issues a high priority but would not guarantee that “they’ll be more important than before” under Keeney.
Farquhar appears to have most of her key staff in place. Ralph Haller, as one of two deputy bureau chiefs, will focus on private wireless policy and enforcement. Gerald Vaughan, the other deputy bureau chief, will oversee auctions, common carrier wireless policy and Gettysburg, Pa., licensing.
Rosalind Allen, who had headed the bureau’s commercial wireless division, will be associate deputy for policy. Karen Brinkman, who has served in the chairman’s office and most recently in the Common Carrier Bureau, will handle local competition issues.
