The FCC Gets Set to Free Wireless

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission is launching initiatives that will shape the fate of America’s wireless industry. It started to examine competition in the market, and it will propose taking Depression-era utility regulations off mobile broadband networks while protecting an open internet. This is only the beginning. The FCC is acting on a rare opportunity to correct its recent mistakes and restore the Clinton-era light-touch regulatory framework that will drive economic growth and job creation. The FCC should begin by liberating wireless from the heavy-handed rules of a 1934 law called Title II, which was created when phones were held in two hands. This antiquated law imposes powerful economic regulations on the internet, chilling investment in broadband.

The FCC will propose to unshackle the net from this millstone of a law. This would restore the bipartisan light-touch policies that nurtured the burgeoning internet Americans enjoy today. The FCC can take a few other discrete steps. It would accelerate the mobile revolution if it streamlined rules that slow the construction of wireless infrastructure—and deprive consumers of the benefits of next-gen technologies. The agency should also update rules that dictate how much of a particular radio frequency a carrier can own in a market. America’s brilliant wireless engineers are inventing new ways to turn yesterday’s junk frequencies into tomorrow’s gold, rendering current regulations obsolete.

[Robert McDowell is a partner at Cooley LLP and chief public policy adviser to Mobile Future; he served as a FCC Commissioner 2006-13.]