WASHINGTON-The pace of technological change-rapid and frenzied-will have an impact on regulation, and in turn, how regulation impacts the wireless industry in the next millennium, most policy makers agree.
The Federal Communications Commission already is changing the way it conducts business; that is, the way it regulates, said Thomas Sugrue, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. “Regulation, if we do it right, will try to keep ahead and indeed be ahead of marketplace and technological changes,” Sugrue said.
Sugrue’s view is not universal at the FCC. Republican FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth said he “tends to think the technological and legal changes have been so immense [recently, but] will be nothing compared to what will happen in the future.”
Furchtgott-Roth tempered his remarks with a refusal to predict the future. “Being part of an industry that is bad at forecasting the future … I don’t do forecasts,” he said.
The view is shared by Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee. “It’s a little hard to predict” what regulation will look like in the next millennium, said Tauzin, through his spokesman Ken Johnson. “I don’t know if anyone knows what regulation will look like next week.”
Ultimately, Congress will decide what the FCC should look like in the 21st Century and beyond.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of a handful of senators to vote against the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and now chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee overseeing the FCC, is worried telephone-type regulation will be brought to the Internet. He is working on various legislative initiatives to make sure that will not happen.
The House telecommunications subcommittee has created a task force chaired by Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) that is collecting ideas from industry representatives on FCC reform. The wireless industry has been deeply involved in this effort. A bill is expected before the end of the year.
It is appropriate the wireless industry is telling Congress what the FCC should look like. The ideas are not new and show that within the scheme of FCC reform, wireless industry representatives hope for legislative changes that put their slice of the industry in a better position in the next millennium.
The Industrial Telecommunications Association, which represents the private wireless industry, is pushing legislation in Congress that would give the FCC more tools-besides the dreaded competitive bidding or auction process-to license spectrum.
ITA has been pushing a bill that would allow the FCC to impose spectrum lease fees for new spectrum for private internal communications. The idea for such legislation is not new. A bill was introduced in the last Congress but was ignored after the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 passed.
“Until Congress modifies ground rules for the FCC’s spectrum management, I think we will see more of the same … What we are seeing is the expanded auction authority in the [balanced budget act. The FCC keeps saying,] `We don’t have any choice,’ ” said ITA President Mark Crosby.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, which largely represents incumbent cellular operators, believes the FCC needs to stop regulating the industry, said CTIA President Thomas E. Wheeler. “This whole concept of forbearance-forbearance gives you a place to jump off from to get to the [Federal Trade Commission] model. There needs to be a burden of proof to make the [FCC] say, `This is why [a certain regulation is needed] rather than the industry saying why” it isn’t needed, Wheeler said.
CTIA outlined for Gillmor’s task force a list of 12 regulations it believes the FCC should delete from its books.
One of these regulations, the elimination of the spectrum cap-which says no company can control more than 45 megahertz of spectrum in any given geographic region-puts CTIA in direct contrast with the Personal Communications Industry Association.
PCIA, which represents upstart wireless companies, believes the FCC’s “goal for the next millennium is a goal of competition with a strategy of balance to get there,” said PCIA President Jay Kitchen.
Regulations, such as the spectrum cap, should remain for now, and the FCC needs to take a bigger role in tower siting and interconnection issues, said the trade group.
PCIA also is concerned Congress expects more from the FCC than the resources Congress allocates for the FCC. PCIA will be lobbying Congress to give the FCC more resources, Kitchen said.
The American Mobile Telecommunications Association believes the FCC should allocate more spectrum for small- and medium-sized business carriers, said AMTA President Alan Shark.
Others are not so sure the FCC should even continue into the next millennium or at least function as it does now.
Jeffrey Eisenach, president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank associated with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), believes the FCC needs to be abolished and replaced with an executive branch agency. “We need an executive branch policy maker instead of an independent regulator,” Eisenach said.
Eisenach does not believe the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is quite up to the task, but that “some of the functions could be housed in a reformed NTIA.”
Spectrum needs to be managed more like property, especially as wireless becomes the model for the Internet, said Solveig Singleton, director of information studies at the Cato Institute. “Property rights are a better model than licensing. For example, spread spectrum technology is coming. It is not clearly understood how licensing should work there,” Singleton said.
Singleton believes that since wireless is a low-cost way of getting broadband out to rural America, a lot of the regulation the FCC spends its time on will no longer be necessary.
