FCC policies under Obama Administration

January 2 2009: An Xchange Magazine interview of Democratic FCC commissioner Adelstein may offer some insight into what an Obama FCC would do. Adelstein does not sound like he favors returning to a wholesale/unbundled age (not that it would likely pass muster with the appeals courts after what’s already happened there), and he appears to understand that municipal projects to expand broadband would have to be coupled with tax credits and incentives to incumbents.

The chances of something happening in the broadband world are increased if the major players are rational, at least, in their directions. We believe that the broadband stimulus package will be an instrument to reshape the regulatory landscape because it provides money to compensate for changes in market position and profit that regulatory policy shifts can create, and thus reduces the risk of damaging public companies with millions of investors.

At the same time, we must point out that our work for decades has shown that profiting from telecom infrastructure investment is much harder in some places than in others, so calls for “lower prices” in the U.S. could never be met without a permanent taxpayer subsidization program that is very unlikely to pass.