The FCC faces questions and challenges as it awaits a new chairman

A Q&A with Phil Weiser -- a former senior adviser for Obama on technology and innovation, and current dean of the University of Colorado’s law school.

He views the nomination of the next chairmen of the Federal Communications Commission as an opportunity to rethink the role of the FCC and how it could oversee the massive and expanding telecom and Internet broadband market. He sees freeing up spectrum — not only for consumers — but also for machine-to-machine communications as one of the FCC’s top priorities. On the phone-to-broadband transition, he says, “All current policy is built on the use of legacy technology and thus the transition away from it is major challenge for the FCC. Rather than necessarily attempt to simply transfer all legacy policy into the IP work, the FCC will need to ask ‘What policy regimes and policy goals are important?’”