The resignation of Michael Powell as chairman of the FCC has been met with cheers in some corners. I would submit that anybody who’s happy to see Michael Powell go doesn’t have the first semblance of a clue about the Internet, VoIP, digital TV, or wireless networking, because Powell has been, far and away, the best FCC chairman ever on these issues. This is the way Glenn Fleishman of Wi-Fi Networking News put it:
But this site’s myopic focus will remember Powell’s legacy more for his unstinting support for the opposite of consolidation in spectrum policy. Over the last four years, Powell by his public statements and, ostensibly, private actions has managed to open more spectrum, consider innovative secondary uses of licensed spectrum, and build a framework for cleaning up the messier and least used bands that are needed for 3G and beyond and WiMax and beyond.
In these areas, Powell’s leadership encouraged technologies that aren’t centrally owned or controlled and that may, in fact, dislodge primacy of wireline incumbents.
So there you have it – some people evaluate FCC commissioners on how well they ignore long-standing law and policy to excuse the potty-mouth stylings of completely worthless human scum like Howard Stern, and some evaluate them on how well they push new technologies forward. I know which side of that debate I’m on.
So we should praise Powell because he continued the Clinton era policy of allocating more unlicensed spectrum?
Well, geez, louise if that was your criterion why did you accept a 2nd rate substitute when you could have had the real deal?
John, you’re dreaming. Clinton doesn’t even know how to spell Wi-Fi, let alone how to protect it.
It was Clinton’s FCC that first allocated the UNII band.
How many Clinton appointees were on that board, John?
Clinton doesn’t know how to use an ATM probably, to this day.
I will agree that he has helped technology thrive, but taking credit for blogs is a bit much and statist for that matter. Blogs came from bloggers more than government.