WASHINGTON-In a stinging setback for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt, three commissioners rejected a proposed spectrum policy statement to substitute market forces for government regulation in the future.
Only Hundt endorsed the failed policy statement, which the full commission had wanted to unveil last fall but did not due to the lack of consensus and the controversy it generated.
The project, overseen in part by Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Michele Farquhar and billed for months as an FCC policy statement, was downgraded last week to a staff paper after FCC commissioners James Quello, Susan Ness and Rachelle Chong declined to embrace the document.
A staff paper carries relatively little weight compared with an FCC policy statement.
For that reason, the 24-page think piece represents a major failure to build on last March’s FCC spectrum policy hearing and to crystallize in a single document the philosophical underpinnings of liberalized spectrum policies manifested in wireless rulings of recent years. Farquhar said she was not disappointed with the outcome, noting the paper should elicit a lot of discussion.
At the same time, the paper appears to underscore Hundt’s desire to de-emphasize engineering as part of the upcoming agency shakeup.
“Using Market-based Spectrum Policy to Promote the Public Interest,” is co-authored by Gregory Rosston, deputy chief economist, and Jeffrey Steinberg, special counsel to the commercial wireless division of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
“Taken to its logical extension, total flexibility would lead to interference among users and would be detrimental to the commission’s key responsibility to manage the spectrum,” said Rudy Baca, senior legal advisor to Quello.
David Siddall, an aide to Commissioner Ness, characterized the work as a “theoretical paper” that lacks guidance on spectrum management. Siddall said the paper failed to adequately address private wireless and broadcast spectrum, and was plagued by inconsistencies.
Besides sparking controversy over policy recommendations such as eliminating radio service designations, ending buildout requirements (endorsing spectrum warehousing) and subsidizing public safety communications instead of setting aside spectrum, the paper ruffled feathers in the agency because of how it was managed.
For example, input from the Office of Engineering and Technology-normally a key player in spectrum initiatives-was limited, according to FCC officials. OET was not made aware of the now-defunct policy statement until it was close to final form, and only then was feedback solicited, officials said.
That OET was only asked to marginally take part in the process does not appear to be an accident. A market-driven spectrum policy with maximum technical and operational flexibility, like that embraced by Hundt and the paper’s authors, would arguably necessitate fewer engineers.
As such, Hundt has directed Mary Beth Richards, deputy chief of the Common Carrier Bureau, to develop recommendations for consolidating and/or eliminating OET, the Competition Division of the Office of General Counsel, the Office of Communications Business Opportunities and the Office of Public Affairs. In 1995, Richards spearheaded a downsizing effort that resulted in 50 layoffs in the Compliance and Information Bureau.
