DSL Prime: The FCC Commissioners

Two FCC commissioners are fighting for their jobs. DSL Prime expects one will stay and two will go.

by Dave Burstein DSL Prime [July 19, 2004]

McCain: Save Adelstein's Job
"A significant number of issues critical to American consumers are pending before the Commission," McCain and fellow Republican Conrad Burns write to Bush, as his term expires. We need someone with his knowledge and experience on the job at the FCC. South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds and Public Utilities Commissioner Bob Sahr, both Republicans, were joined by John Thune, Republican opponent of Tom Daschle, in a similar call reported by Dan Daly of the Rapid City Journal.

Adelstein has done a remarkable job on the commission, DSL Prime believes. Especially noteworthy is his early recognition that DSL should be live to every home as an essential service. British Telecom has embraced that concept, designing their 21st Century Network with DSL enabled on every line. What was impractical a few years ago now becomes good business, as the equipment cost of DSL continues to drop.

In some situations, the cost of DSL enabling every line is lower than the operations cost of turning up customers individually. As the price of DSL gear goes down, this will become typical, and DSL will become ubiquitous on new phone systems eventually. But it will take leadership to make the transition quickly.

As Powell Prepares to Leave
Mike Powell is likely to leave the FCC soon, Jube Shiver reports. "Powell denied that he had any immediate plans to leave. But the former Army officer and antitrust lawyer recently prepared a six-month strategy for resolving the controversial media ownership, indecency and telephone competition issues." He strongly denied reports last year he was leaving, indicating he will stay "through the election." That time is close. Shiver expects Abernathy will "substantially increase her salary" by leaving as well.

Powell has two significant opportunities to leave a legacy before he goes. He can forward the revolution by easing the government-created monopolies in wireless by opening the airwaves to all uses that do significantly interfere. The FCC Technological Advisory Committee has made the dramatic recommendation that the right to use spectrum—for broadcast or communication—should not allow you to block minimally interfering use. New technology, including agile software defined radio, is ready to alleviate the "spectrum shortage," if the Commission has the fortitude to confront those controlling spectrum today.

The second, lesser known regulatory proceeding could double the number of radio stations in the U.S. IBOC digital radio essentially provides a second channel in the same spectrum, which existing broadcasters want to monopolize with a simulcast of the same programming. There's no technical reason not to use the signal for completely new radio stations, as NPR is suggesting. Nothing is more important to FCC policy than diversity of voices, although fighting the existing stations on this would probably require more courage than the Chairman has.

The two-channel choice is particularly easy on FM, where the "HD Radio" claims are an emperor without clothes. They never perform tests against current state of the art receivers because the difference to almost everyone is inaudible in FM. That's why stations didn't want to sign on.

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Copyright 2004 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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