The industry congratulations came pouring in Tuesday morning on word that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate Julius Genachowski to head the FCC.
The only trouble is, that word comes from media reports, not the Obama transition team, which won’t confirm or deny the speculation. But Washington circles often work this way – leaking accurate information just before an official announcement is made.
If reports are correct, however, Obama has chosen Genachowski over the person many people thought to be a shoe-in: Blair Levin, an FCC chief of staff during the Clinton years and a highly respected telecom analyst who now serves as a tech advisor on Obama’s transition team. Yet Obama also apparently has selected a person with wide tech and business experience to lead an agency that’s been demoralized by a heavy-handed Kevin Martin, and that’s nearly put the Ma Bell monopoly system back together.
In that vein, Genachowski – an Obama Harvard Law classmate and now-Obama tech advisor – is expected to be a friend to competitive and wireless carriers, and even to cable, the industry against which Martin seemed to have a personal vendetta. Genachowski presumably would be more loathe to approve forbearance requests than Martin, and unsupportive of the revocation of special access rules. Telecom analysts for investment bank Stifel Nicolaus added in a client memo Tuesday that Genachowski’s approach to intercarrier compensation and Universal Service Fund reform remains unclear, “but we suspect he would seek a rough compromise that spreads potential pain around.”
Genachowski further would be much more skeptical of relaxed media ownership rules than his soon-to-be predecessor. Martin had no qualms about one entity controlling the media in a single market. Finally, Genachowski is believed to support greater broadband deployment and access, and an open Internet and net neutrality.
“While it remains to be seen how that agenda will play out in specific policies and industry impact, we believe the regulatory initiative is likely to shift some from incumbents – and the Bells in particular – to new entrants and other nontraditional telecom and media players, including Internet application/content providers,” wrote David Kaut and Rebecca Arbogast of Stifel Nicolaus, the company Levin worked for before moving to the Obama team.
Other insiders agreed. Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of the think tank Public Knowledge, said she has known Genachowski for 15 years and expects him to champion the FCC’s “legal obligation” to protect the public interest.
