Powell Says He’s Most Proud of Record on Technology

In possibly his last interview before leaving the agency, Powell disagreed with those who think he will be remembered as an indecency cop rather than a technology guru. “I don’t think the 2 begin to compare,” Powell said. “How many big indecency decisions did I make this year and let’s compare that to VoIP, broadband over powerline, Wi-Fi technology, spectrum policy,” he said. “When I give a speech and mention Xbox and PlayStation and their cellphone, iPod and TiVo, people know what I'm talking about. They know we at the FCC had something to do with that.”

President Bush on Wed. named FCC Comr. Kevin Martin (CD March 17 p1) to replace Powell, who served as a commissioner 4 years before becoming chairman in 2001. Powell left amid proceedings involving major issues such as VoIP, DTV and intercarrier compensation. That’s the nature of the job, he said. “The place never stops, and there is no way I can leave with every possible thing done,” Powell said. A handful of issues on circulation among the commissioners as he packed his boxes Wed. -- including proceedings on set-top boxes and low power FM -- that still might see final action before his departure, Powell said. The Level 3 access charge petition also was circulating, but he seemed less optimistic about that issue getting finished the last day. If any of these items received a 3 vote majority before Powell left the agency Thurs., his vote would stand. If not, “my vote gets pulled,” he said.

Asked about regrets, Powell said the media ownership proceeding “didn’t land in a good place.” People were confused about what the agency was doing, he said. The FCC wasn’t liberalizing rules for all media, only for broadcast and only because the broadcast ownership rules were more restrictive than those for cable or satellite TV, he said. “I still think what we were trying to do was right,” he said. “It was badly misunderstood, and it took us too long to realize how big [the misunderstanding] was getting.” Going from 35% to 45% ownership caps meant the average network could own one or 2 more stations, he said: “I think people thought it meant you could own 45% of the country’s stations. I wish we had thought more about marketing. The 35% rules should have been called the 2% rule.”

The FCC’s order had raised the limits on the size of the national audience that can be reached by a single owner of TV stations from 35% to 45%, but Congress later passed a law that established a 39% cap. The uproar about the ownership rules surprised him because the previous chairman, William Kennard, liberalized some of the rules and there seemed to be a call for more action, Powell said. “I missed it, I didn’t see all of that [controversy] coming,” Powell said.

The agency’s work in shepherding the development of new technology was a more satisfying endeavor, Powell said. “When I came here it was an agency that managed a mature industry of telephone companies, circuit switched problems,” he said. “The more I learned about technology, the more I believed if we do it right more power would go from the institution to the people.” He said he’s been in the executive suites of Microsoft, Cisco Systems and many others “and nobody doubts this agency can hold our own on the cutting edge of technology.” To high tech “we're not the dumb bureaucrats in their way; we are the people they come to for help.” The FCC’s news release announcing Powell’s departure “says we tried to promote a regulatory environment that allows for technological innovation and personal power,” he said: “I believe that’s the most important thing we did. VoIP, BPL [broadband over powerline], Wi-Fi, ultra-wideband, LNP [local number portability], do-not-call, HDTV, TiVo, iPod. Isn’t it coming true?”

“Nearly every Saturday for 4 years I went to Best Buy,” he said: “I walked around to see if this stuff were real, or if I'm making it up. The revolution is on display there. Best Buy doesn’t have an analog aisle anymore. There’s a shelf of wireless networking gear. We did that. There are iPods over here. There are TiVos over there. There are cellphone counters from one end of the store to the other. There are phones distributing video content. Our advanced wireless spectrum makes that possible. Over in this booth, Cox and Comcast or Verizon are selling broadband service, not for a million dollars like everyone told me. For $29.99 or $39.99. Turn the corner and there’s a shelf where you can buy phone service called Vonage. Off the shelf, take it home and plug it in and you can call your sister halfway around the world for next to nothing.”

As for indecency, “I've felt uncomfortable about every single one of these decisions we've done,” he said. “I generally have had some struggle with all of them.” Nonetheless, “I've been here 8 years and this is the only issue where families stop me in stores and say thank you,” he said. The agency’s decisions on indecency have been “just about right,” he said. “I don’t think Americans are ultra-prudish, but we're tired of being ambushed.” Consumers tell him, “I can handle a bare breast” but they don’t like being “assaulted with this at any moment of the day.” Consumers tell him they don’t want to be surprised as they sit with their children watching a football game. “It’s the shock value.”

Asked about criticism that the agency hasn’t done enough to move HDTV along, Powell said that’s the “what have you done for us lately” view. “HDTV was nowhere when I became chairman. A huge number of stations were not on line, nobody was producing any content, television sets were not being sold in stores.” Now TV sales are rising, most major networks broadcast in HDTV in prime time now and the cable industry is “the biggest purveyor of high def content now.” The FCC didn’t set a “hard date” for ending the transition to digital, he said. The Communications Act, not the FCC, ends the transition in 2006, requiring broadcasters to seek waivers if they can’t meet that date. Unless there’s further action, “there are going to be thousands of waivers showing up at the FCC [from broadcasters] to not turn over their spectrum because they haven’t met the 85%” penetration level. Powell said the agency had come up with a “clever” way to ease this process through the so-called Ferree plan but “the politics were a little funny” and the Commission wasn’t comfortable with it.