Michael Powell Has No Problem Killing Off Dinosaurs

from the sounds-good dept

A bit more evidence that FCC chair Michael Powell actually does know what he's talking about. The San Jose Mercury News is posting some quotes from his recent visit to Silicon Valley that suggest he understands many of the bigger issues facing the FCC these days and isn't (as some have suggested) looking to regulate everything. On access into the home, he says: "We don't want one pipe. We're doing everything we can to incent the free-radical opportunities for multiple routes to the home. So when you look at FCC proceedings, that's where there's so much energy going into WiFi, and ultra-wideband and powerline broadband and laser optics and free-space optics and other policies that encourage and incent the creation of alternate digital platforms." He even says that trying to regulate a company like Vonage is the same as killing them. He also, explicitly, realizes the very important separation of the platform from the application and realizes the ramifications of that: "And that's why if you're the music industry, you're scared. And if you're the television studio, movie industry, you're scared. And if you're an incumbent infrastructure carrier, you'd better be scared. Because this application separation is the most important paradigm shift in the history of communications, and will change things forever.... I have no problem if a big and venerable company no longer exists tomorrow, as long as that value is transferred somewhere else in the economy." Of course, those big companies have lots of lobbyists and friends in high places who are going to try to make Powell's job more difficult. What he needs to do is to convince them that, in moving forward, there are even more opportunities to make money.

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