FCC Chairman Martin says, "Broadband is top priority"

Submitted by acohill on Tue, 05/31/2005 - 13:20

Kevin Martin, Michael Powell's replacement as the Chairman of the FCC, said in an interview that broadband is a top priority for the agency. This article [link no longer available] has some of Martin's comments, but it does not shed much light on where the FCC is likely to take the broadband issue in the future.

The FCC has been awkwardly trying to straddle the fence on broadband issues, trying to placate the incumbent providers while also trying to encourage new services. But the pushme-pullyou approach ends up with some very odd situations. The 911 requirement for VoIP phones that the agency announced last week (that the VoIP providers have 120 days to get their systems working with 911) seems particularly odd when you consider that the cellphone providers have been trying to get cellphones to work with 911 for TEN YEARS.

So one has to wonder what the point of the regulations are--is it political grandstanding to show the public that the FCC is on their side? Or are they trying to simply kill the entire VoIP industry by making impossible demands on these mostly small firms? The real headscratcher is that the FCC has said that the incumbent phone companies must provide access to existing 911 systems but the FCC has provided no rules, which sets the stage for the telcos to charge enormous fees for connections--fees so high that the VoIP competitors go out of business.