FCC to Take Up IP Transition Order at January Open Meeting
The FCC will take up an order on the IP transition at its January meeting, Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a blog post Tuesday. The IP transition is widely viewed as one of the top issues facing the new chairman. Wheeler said he’s essentially following the advice of other commissioners in moving forward at this point (http://fcc.us/1aEwswR). “With the Commission now at full force, it is time to act with dispatch,” Wheeler said.
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At its Dec. 12 meeting, the FCC’s Technology Transitions Policy Task Force “will present a status update with the expectation that the January meeting will include consideration of an Order for immediate action,” Wheeler said. “That Order should include recommendations to the Commission on how best to: (i) obtain comment on and begin a diverse set of experiments that will allow the Commission and the public to observe the impact on consumers and businesses of such transitions (including consideration of AT&T’s proposed trials); (ii) collect data that will supplement the lessons learned from the experiments, and (iii) initiate a process for Commission consideration of legal, policy, and technical issues that would not neatly fit within the experiments, with a game plan for efficiently managing the various adjudications and rulemakings that, together, will constitute our IP transition agenda.” Wheeler is scheduled to circulate items for the December meeting Thursday.
The draft order will examine recommendations on “how best to speed the initiation of experiments and assess, monitor, measure, and analyze their outcomes,” Wheeler said. “How consumers are informed and protected should be a major component. In addition, the Order should explain how the Commission can best obtain accurate and useful information about the technology transition from multiple resources that could include collaboration with other federal, state, and tribal agencies, public input through crowdsourcing, and leveraging outside expertise and advisors.” Wheeler ended the blog with a second promise that the FCC won’t delay. “There is much to do,” he wrote. “The table has been set by previous decisions and inputs. The time to act starts now."
AT&T has been a leading proponent of speeding up transition trials and Senior Executive Vice President Jim Cicconi almost immediately posted an entry on the company’s policy blog applauding the development (http://bit.ly/1hVui2s). “Today’s action is a significant step forward for the industry,” he said. “Our current infrastructure has served us well for almost a century but it no longer meets the needs of America’s consumers. The transition to broadband and IP services that has already begun is driven by consumers who are moving to the Internet and choosing to connect in ways not imagined just a decade ago. Like any change it requires planning. The geographic trials directed by Chairman Wheeler will provide the real world answers needed to ensure a seamless transition. We're committed to work closely and constructively with the FCC and with all stakeholders to ensure this process succeeds and the goals set forth in the National Broadband Plan are achieved."
Not surprisingly, Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld was more cautious. “The Chairman is showing strong leadership on this issue,” he said in a statement posted by the group (http://bit.ly/1fT6Uhm). “It’s important that the FCC show that this transition is not just about AT&T ... or any other carrier. It impacts the lives and well-being of every American. Nobody should doubt that this is a complex process, but it’s important that the FCC lead the transition and take a major role in coordinating its outcome."
Walter McCormick, USTelecom president, and Randolph May, Free State Foundation president, both applauded Wheeler for prioritizing the IP transition. The transition “holds enormous promise for American consumers, economic growth, and job creation,” McCormick said. “We look forward to working with the commission and all interested parties to make these trials a successful and informative first-step in the development of policies that will secure the full benefit of new high-speed networks.”
"Beginning some trials as AT&T asked for a year ago is an important step,” May said. “And I am especially pleased that Wheeler refers to a process for commission consideration of certain legal and policy issues that ‘would not fit neatly within the experiments,’ because it is absolutely true that the FCC doesn’t need to conduct an experiment to know that certain legacy regulations should not apply at all to IP services or that the agency has the legal authority to take certain deregulatory actions, whether through forbearance decisions, issuance of waivers and declaratory rulings, or otherwise."