Levin Slams FCC, BDAC as Helping Industry with No Public Benefits
Wealth likely will be transferred to private companies from the public as a result of the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee's work, Brookings Institution senior fellow Blair Levin said Monday in a speech to a Coalition for Local Internet Choice…
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conference in Austin. “The BDAC and the FCC will likely adopt a framework in which industry gets all the benefits with no obligations and municipalities get all the costs and no guaranteed benefits,” said Levin, who authored the FCC’s 2010 National Broadband Plan. The commission under Chairman Ajit Pai “is the first FCC to interpret its statutory mandate to say it doesn’t have much legal authority or policy rights to regulate broadcasters, telephone companies, cable companies, or wireless companies,” Levin said. “Instead, its principal regulatory mandate is to regulate another set of enterprises: local governments.” The FCC didn’t comment.