Tauke Critiques ‘Backwards Looking’ U.S. Regulatory Policies
ASPEN, Colo. -- Tom Tauke critiqued what he called U.S. government’s “backwards looking” perspective on telecommunications regulatory policies. His comments came at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum Monday. Tauke, Verizon executive vice president-public affairs, policy and communications, urged lawmakers to revise the “obsolete” 1996 Telecom Act and focus on policies that encourage growth and innovation. Representatives from Comcast and Google, speaking on the same panel, said they're encouraged by both presidential candidates’ perspective on technology, and Congress’ appetite to tackle legacy regulations.
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Tauke said he was surprised that the Justice Department and the FCC were so focused during the consideration of the Verizon/SpectrumCo deal on whether Verizon would continue to invest in their infrastructure. That concern “highlights the fact that we are in a backwards looking world,” he said. Verizon is going to continue to invest in FiOS, continue to invest in their copper network, continue to see DSL as an important component of its business, he said. “But I'm not sure we are focused on what the right things are in the policy making arena,” he said.
U.S. Policymakers need to consider a “fundamental change” in their thought processes concerning telecommunications regulation, said Tauke. In the past, telecommunications policy has been driven by a fear “that somebody will do something wrong as a monopolist and hurt consumers or fear that competition will not exist in the marketplace.” As a result they have implemented “prophylactic measures to prevent these things from happening,” he said.
Policymakers should instead consider what Tauke called an “innovation model.” Agencies and lawmakers should “ensure that they are facilitating innovation or at least not hindering innovation in the marketplace,” he said. “You need to move away from a rulemaking process that tries to anticipate harm and prevent the harm and instead you have to move to a model that is still a rule of law, that ensures the government has a role to play to protect consumers, but is a model that encourages the multi stakeholder model … and tries to ensure that if there is harm there is quick action by the government to prevent that harm and to enforce various guidelines to ensure that consumers are protected.”
Antitrust laws “are very flexible” said Federal Trade Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen, who also spoke on the panel. Agencies are not in a siloed environment, she said. “You're really looking at, if there is a problem in the market, what does the consumer see or the customer see as it’s different options.” In addition, “there is a difference in preserving competition and protecting competition and actively trying to create new competition,” she said. “I think that is a very difficult proposition for the government to do.”
The FCC’s net neutrality order is another example of regulators operating within a “bad, obsolete statute,” said Tauke. Verizon’s opposition to the ruling wasn’t a question of whether or not it was good policy, he said, it was a question of whether or not the “FCC has the authority under the current statute to enact that kind of policy.” The commission is “working in a world with an obsolete statute,” he said. “They aren’t equipped, they don’t have the statutory authority in those areas.” Ohlhausen said the FTC looked at whether it has tools it could apply if companies were harming consumers by blocking or throttling data. “The answer was ‘yes,’ the commission said it seems that antitrust consumer protection can address these harms as they arise,” she said.
Kyle McSlarrow, president of Comcast/NBC Universal-Washington said he’s encouraged that Congress has shown a “growing appetite” for taking a fresh look at telecommunications policy. “There is enough widespread recognition that you have to change things. But the devil is in the details and the rub is what do you do to replace them,” he said. Specifically lawmakers need to rethink the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and “question whether or not just about any of the legacy regulations that are in place today for siloed industries have any relevance going forward.”
McSlarrow said he’s not concerned that telecom issues aren’t topping the list of campaign issues for President Barack Obama and GOP presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Whether Obama is re-elected or Romney becomes the president “there will be people who are focused on these issues,” he said. Google Director-Public Policy Pablo Chavez said both Obama and Romney are focusing on Internet freedom in their campaign platforms. “There is a very good reason for that …. we are a critical component of economic growth and job creation in this company,” he said.