FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on FCC's "Wall Street Goodwill Tour"

It has recently been reported that the Federal Communications Commission is planning to conduct a “goodwill tour” on Wall Street in the coming days. At first, I thought that this must have been a clever bit of satire. But apparently, it isn’t.

According to one press account, this tour will be an “attempt to message that the Commission is still ‘open for business’ and not hostile to the industries it regulates.” With broadband providers’ capital expenditures falling, widespread concerns about the design of the incentive auction, and an enforcement scheme unconstrained by the rule of law, the Commission shouldn’t be focused on better marketing. What’s needed are better policies -- policies that make economic sense, that spur greater investment in and deployment of broadband infrastructure, and that give entrepreneurs the certainty they need to innovate and succeed.