Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell warned that rules...
Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell warned that rules on the repacking of stations tied to the incentive auction of broadcast-TV spectrum raises the risk that the auction could be overturned in federal court. McDowell spoke Friday, less than a month…
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after he left the agency, as a new Hudson Institute visiting fellow. He was interviewed by former Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth, also associated with the institute. McDowell said it could take many months for the Senate to confirm Tom Wheeler as next FCC chairman, which could mean further delays in the auction if the agency doesn’t approve auction rules under acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn. McDowell also remains concerned about international attempts to regulate the Internet, as exemplified by December’s World Conference on International Telecommunications. The U.S. declined there to sign on to revised International Telecommunication Regulations (WID Dec 14 p1). “Overall, the thrust thus far is in the wrong direction,” said McDowell. “For decades, the consensus was internationally that governments should keep their hands off this space, the markets that became known as the Internet net sector. But over the years there were a lot of countries … who have been quietly and persistently trying to change that for a variety of motivations.” Using an “incremental approach” to gain more control, “they're winning as we saw in Dubai” at the WCIT, McDowell said. The U.S. was assured prior to the WCIT treaty that negotiations “would not touch the Internet” and “there would be unanimous consensus … none of which turned out to be true,” he said. Forty percent of nations that attended WCIT haven’t signed the treaty, he noted. “It was a debacle and it has created a tremendous amount of uncertainty.” The next big international conference to watch is the ITU Plenipotentiary meeting, scheduled for October of 2014 in Busan, South Korea, McDowell said. “There will be essentially a constitutional convention convened of the ITU, where they will literally rewrite their constitution and they will elect a new secretary general.” The leading candidate now is Deputy General Secretary Houlin Zhao from China, said McDowell. Zhao is “very charismatic, but China is one of the countries pushing the hardest for some of these regulations,” McDowell said. “One of the Holy Grails for China in terms of Internet governance is to have an international registry, and I'm not making this up, of all IP addresses, so that’s every device you've got with you right now and ultimately your refrigerator and car will have IP addresses.”