WASHINGTON-FCC Chairman Michael Powell said he does not favor mandating the use of best practices developed by the FCC’s Network Reliability & Interoperability Committee as some state regulators have suggested.
“As long as the process works effectively, there is no need for regulation,” said Powell, noting that the best practices “leave specific implementation decisions to each individual firm.”
There seemed to be general agreement at Monday’s meeting that mandating the use of the best practices was not only not the way to go but also potentially harmful to the process of industry best practices.
There was warning though that when best practices are not used and problems occur, the urge to mandate their use grows.
NRIC, made up of industry executives, has been meeting for more than a decade to collect data on and examine solutions to network outages. Its portfolio of issues has steadily increased and grown more important with the advent of homeland security.
