Michael Copps laments decline of competition

The United States communications infrastructure has been "short-changed" by "30-plus years of misguided public policy," former Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps said.

Copps, who was reminiscing on his decade at the FCC, said he came to the commission in 2001 "expecting to help shepherd start-up and struggling phone companies ... to competitive viability.” While addressing attendees at the Freedom to Connect conference, Copps spoke of processing many petitions from long-distance carriers looking to enter local markets “based on the premise and the promise that letting the big guys into long-distance would be accompanied by opening local markets to competition," Copps said. "In the end there were some competitive successes, but not enough to justify the claim that there was anything approaching real industry competition," he said.