WASHINGTON-In order to be effective in the next millennium, the Federal Communications Commission must reorganize itself to better deal with converging industries, according to many panelists taking part in two discussions last Thursday afternoon.
The FCC held a public forum on “A new FCC for the 21st Century.” At the same time, the House telecommunications subcommittee held a hearing where state regulators and a representative of the United States Telephone Association of what the FCC should look like in the future.
The House telecom subcommittee has spent this spring examining how the FCC is doing its job in preparation for FCC re-authorization legislation expected to be introduced in the next couple of months. One of these hearings, on which all five FCC commissioners participated, led the FCC to come up with its own plan for reorganizing itself for the next century. “Congress is doing its own thinking on this … but we thought we should give them our best thinking and that had to be informed” thus the reason for the FCC’s forum, said Kathryn Brown, FCC chief of staff.
The FCC has had a tough job reforming itself since the telecom act was passed in 1996, and future commissions will have an even tougher job, said Brian Fontes, senior vice president for policy and administration of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
Almost every industry-client of the FCC told the FCC it has to change because of the emergence of convergence and competition. But convergence and competition is not a goal or an accomplishment but rather a process, many of the 26 panelists said.
Noticeably absent from the forum was the private wireless industry-apparently a case of miscommunication. The FCC issued a public notice on the meeting, but the Industrial Telecommunications Association, a leading trade association for the private wireless industry, waited for an invitation.
Government must recognize the telecom industry is actually many different industries, such as specialized mobile radio, mobile telephony and wireline telephony, said Alan Shark, president of the American Mobile Telecommunications Association.
The FCC is creating an Enforcement Bureau later this year, merging the enforcement functions of the various industry-specific bureaus. This upcoming event prompted many panelists to suggest how the FCC should conduct its enforcement functions.
Many of the young attorneys suggested a litigative or adjudicative process such as an Administrative Law Judge. This was decried by veteran players, who said how long the old ALJ processes used to take.
Staff in charge of policy-making functions at the FCC should communicate better with the agency’s enforcement staff, said David Donovan, vice president for legal and legislative affairs for the Association of Local Television Stations.
Alan Ciamporcero, vice president of regulatory for GTE Service Corp., took it one step further, saying the Office of Plans and Policy should review each decision to make sure it is coherent between the policy and enforcement bureaus. But the enforcement bureau should not make policy, said Thomas Tauke, senior vice president for government relations for Bell Atlantic Corp.
FCC reform cannot be a vehicle for re-opening the telecom act, said Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-Va.), chairman of the House Commerce Committee at the telecom subcommittee meeting.
Irma Muse Dixon of the Louisiana Public Service Commission decried the fact that the FCC has denied two applications by BellSouth Corp. to offer long distance in Louisiana after the PSC had approved them.
