Will Obama's FCC be Less Friendly to Incumbents?

[Commentary] The Obama-Biden transition team has disclosed that Susan Crawford, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and Kevin Werbach, a former FCC staffer and a Wharton professor, will lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Review team. Both are long-time net neutrality advocates. Industry pundits say the choice of Crawford and Werbach could signal a different approach to the incumbent-friendly telecom policymaking over the past eight years at the FCC. Indeed, in March at a telecom policy conference in Hollywood, Calif., Crawford said that Internet access is a "utility." Crawford also told Ambassador Richard Russell, the associate director on science and technology policy at the White House, that he lived in a fantasyland when he asserted that the United States' rollout of broadband is going well. We can assume that Crawford's stance indicates that President-elect Obama's FCC will be more inclined to regulate, more inclined to enforce competition rules for smaller players, and less willing to approve mega mergers.