Business Experience Critical for Next FCC Chairman, Shapiro Says

"I am paid by more than 2,000 of the most innovative companies in the world -- the companies which produce the cool products and services consumers love,” Shapiro wrote in an open letter to President Barack Obama. “These companies’ ability to innovate and provide new products and services is affected by whether the FCC encourages competition or protects legacy industries and special interest groups.”

Shapiro responded to a letter late last month from 15 public interest groups who raised concerns about the ties of presumptive frontrunner Tom Wheeler to industry (CD March 28 p1). Wheeler is the former chairman of NCTA and CTIA and is viewed by some as the likely successor to Chairman Julius Genachowski. “I offer my advice on the next FCC chairman: Pick someone who is fair, open minded, ethical and who shares your and Chairman Genachowski’s view that freeing up spectrum is important for future innovation and for the millions of tablets, smartphones and other connected devices to come to work as consumers expect,” he wrote. “Also, contrary to assertions made in one public interest group letter, having real world business experience is a plus for a policy job affecting businesses. … As long as I can remember, the FCC has always included someone with a background in business, offering a perspective that provides real world context to create policies that consider how best to maximize innovation, broadband competition and job creation."

Speakers at the ITIF event also offered advice. “In the ‘96 act Congress gave us 110 rulemakings to do in 18 months. … The large bulk of them had to be done in six months,” said Blair Levin, manager of the National Broadband Plan and FCC chief of staff under former Chairman Reed Hundt. The day after Congress passed the 1996 law, Hundt gave a speech saying the FCC would “meet or beat” all of the deadlines, Levin said. “I said why did you do that, it'll never happen,” he said. “[Hundt] said, ‘No. It will happen and you will make it happen.’ … That’s what it takes.”

Regulators need deadlines, Levin said. “If you have unlimited time, you'll take unlimited time,” he said. “Work expands to whatever time you have.” Levin also said he doesn’t think regulatory humility is a key for a new chairman, but the willingness to hedge is. Hedging is “Wall Street’s version of humility,” he joked. “I've worked in a lot of different institutions, almost all of them private. Every effective leader I have ever known does have a shadow of doubt, but they also are very effective at articulating where they think they need to go.” Levin said people didn’t have to wait until the day of a commission meeting to hear Hundt’s perspective on an order. “You always knew what he thought 90 days before,” Levin said. “If you're mission-focused, you'll be effective and if you're a weathervane you won’t be.”

Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said “the last few chairmen” after Michael Powell haven’t done a good job of laying out their priorities early on. “In the first 30 days you have to give a major speech telling the American public what you stand for and what your agenda is,” Sohn said. “What your principles are. What values underlie what you want to do and set out an agenda.”

The new chairman “must have a sense that the commission can’t micromanage markets and the regulatory mindset needs to be changed,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May. May also urged process reform, saying too many parties come into the FCC with filings often late in the process as an order is being written. “I think it’s made it more difficult for the commission to reach decisions on a more timely basis,” he said.

Sohn agreed: “I just think the process goes on too long. The commissioners can at certain points just stop taking meetings.” The FCC should also rely more on multistakeholder processes, she said. “I think it is difficult to quickly resolve a lot of problems and they need to rely on outside help,” she said. But too often the outside help “is stakeholder bought-and-paid-for research and that just doesn’t contribute to a great debate."

Speakers also agreed the IP transition is critical. Levin said the National Broadband Plan’s page on the IP transition was the one page he personally wrote. “It didn’t fit anywhere else, which was kind of interesting institutionally,” he said. “The one thing that I got out of it is that I hope that the government very quickly comes to some timetable where it says to the current carriers, ‘Here is the date at which we will no longer force you to invest in an obsolete network. It’s not tomorrow. You can pick three years, you can pick five years, you can pick seven years.’ I actually wish the commission had started this process right after the plan because I think that’s a very important date.”

"Maybe this is an area where there can be some type of multistakeholder process as a backstop, to resolve disputes … that doesn’t involve FCC mandates,” May said.