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NEWS | |
Federal Communications Commission 1919 - M Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 |
News media information 202 / 418-0500 Fax-On-Demand 202 / 418-2830 Internet: http://www.fcc.gov ftp.fcc.gov |
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This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action. Release of the full text of a Commission order constitutes official action. See MCI v. FCC. 515 F 2d 385 (D.C. Circ 1974). |
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March 13, 1998 | ||
FCC COMMISSIONER MICHAEL POWELL ADVISES INVESTMENT ANALYSTS TO LOOK FOR EVIDENCE OF REGULATORS PROMOTING INNOVATION AND COMPETITION |
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At a lunch meeting hosted today by "The Precursor Group" of the securities brokerage
firm Legg Mason, Inc., FCC Commissioner Michael Powell urged an audience of investment
analysts, policymakers, and industry representatives, to "keep a watchful eye on
communications developments in an effort to predict whether proposed [communications]
reforms will be implemented and whether they will be successful." Quoting Albert Einstein, Powell said, "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." Reflecting on where is the country in the communications revolution, Powell remarked "I often think of Einstein's warning," and questioned whether the industry is "truly changing enough, and quickly enough to accommodate" the transformation to a pro-competitive, de- regulatory communications regime. Powell set forth several tenets of "new regulatory thinking" that should guide policy leaders in light of the pro-competitive, de-regulatory environment and the immense power and potential of communications technology unleashed:
"Full emancipation has not yet come to the information and communications industries, because we have not fully changed our mode of regulatory thinking," Powell stated. "The digital explosion will ultimately demolish the byzantine regulatory edifice that communications regulators have constructed over the past several decades. The choice is whether to implode the existing regulatory structure in a controlled manner, by strategically undermining its foundations, . . . or whether to resist foolishly the force of change and allow the regulatory structure to . . . crumble[] under the weight of its own inconsistencies." Commissioner Powell's speech can be downloaded from his internet site at http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/powell/ on the World Wide Web.
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