THERE’S A NEW CHAIRMAN AT FCC
BY KYLE ANDREW BROWN
WASHINGTON, November 6 – Tom Wheeler is the Federal Communications Commission 31st Chairman.
Probably when Millennials talk about Government Agencies it’s understandable if there is a hazy, underlying skepticism that some Big Government Agency needs to filter and control the internet.
The enormous accumulated wealth of the Telcoms is easy to see: online, in Silicon Valley, in our monthly telcom bills. They submerge us into happy land with their their digital promise of the bright future they’re gonna bring us – – But only on their terms.
It is so easy to forget that these guys who pick our wallets are run by mega hedge funds that cash in and cash out each time they get sold among themselves. They attended to Wharton School of Business where the matra each morning is: Business is here only to make a profit for our share holders.
That’s the true dial tone of America’s Telcoms.
Who Chairman Tom Wheeler to whom Barack Obama has entrusted our digital wallets? How is he connected to industry? To Washington? He’s gotta be a seasoned player.
Ahh. Cecilia Kang over there at the new Washington Post wrote a quick heads up on the eve of his appointment.
Turns out Tom Wheeler is not only a big shot Cable Industry insider. He’s also permanently blue inked into the Obama Flow Chart. The wife answered the phones in Iowa during the first campaign. Right up front Cecilia tells us the President’s nominee has been nurtured for the FCC posting in the wireless industry’s CTIA trade group. And the National Cable and Telecommunications Association – – Among the most powerful and deep-pocketed lobbying groups in Washington.
Tom’s Meet and Greet
FCC staff assembled to check out the new Chairman after he took the oath. There must have been a lot of in-house chuckling as Tom encouraged staff to embody the Risk Taking of Venture Capitalism 101.
Readers in Iowo – – Do understand this: The Washington federal employee at any level is not about to risk anything beyond Friday Afternoon’s Redskin’s Bracket. (See: Federal Government Shutdown, op., cit.)
No, FCC staffers, like all Federal employees, just want to be quietly left alone to do their technical jobs and then leave time to worry about getting that GS-14 before retirement date. It sure isn’t about risk taking. Best leave that to Tom, his industry CEO pals and the Chairpersons of the House and Senate Commerce and Energy Committees to work things all out.
Traditional Appointee
There are two kinds of Washington Agency appointees. A White House staff and the President will often make a pick that will either be aggressive in expediting the industry’s or the Administration’s agenda. This is ordinarily done through the agency’s Rulemaking Process. It is a process largely unnoticed, except by served constituencies. The second kind of agency appointment will go to a sitting Governor looking to ride around town in a chauffeured limo – – quite willing to just let her Signature Packages sit on the sofa by the Flag to await another day. That’s how Washington turns off an agency. It may not be permanent. But it is very effective.
A Federal agency has a dynamic not noted in Briefing Books for the incoming Administration. For the FCC the dynamic is to orchestrate the winners and losers in the competing Telcom ownership wars. The mission is not really about helping the small business owner. Or the cash strapped consumer. Or the nationalistic American competitive balance. It’s about who devours Sprint. Do we make our dish washers in Mexico or Brasil? Will the minimum wage go up $1.00 or $2.00 an hour even as oranges at Safeway are ten for a $10.00.
Marketing Daily business reporter Thorm Forbes clues us in that Tom Wheeler sure is an industry player. A true insider. Tom’s completed a tour as managing director at Core Capital Partner LP in Washington. These guys sit comfortably on two funds managing $350 million. You got the diversified portfolio of early-stage ventures. And established mid-size information technology, communications, digital media, and technology-enabled services companies. If you’re riding up front on Delta Airlines these days – – and you’re in cable, wireless, and telecommunications – – Then you’ll have no difficulty being invited to Tom and Carole’s Saturday Night Washington Buffets.
Promises To Keep
The hard core business of the FCC is the management of industry’s buying and selling of Telcom assets. And the technical management of the nation’s communication infrastructure. The Communications Industry has always been about encouraging the development of emerging technologies. For technology is the business fundamental that enables business to collect consumer revenue. In exchange for the provider’s delivery of technological services. CEOs retain accountants to divvy up the revenue between hourly workers and the Executive Suite. With as little as possible, if any, earned income remaining to pay Corporate tax to Government.
Surely, Chairman Wheeler’s speech making in the coming days will be refined to suit the ears of Industry Trade Group representatives. The men at the United States Chamber of Commerce. And there’ll be guest segments with Judy Woodruff on the News Hour.
Will he chat up Elizabeth Murphy Burns, CEO of Madison’s CBS Affiliate WISC-TV who knows everything that needs to be known about Telcos? Not likely. But, hold on, he will be talking to Rupert Murdoch. The Democrats are going to field a candidate in 2016 and anything to keep News Corp., well, happy.
The Chairman’s role at FCC is all about the Administration’s interplay with Telcom relationships. Orchestrating the nuances of the policy making process among industry and political influencers. The stuff that guarantees Politico a morning slot on MSNBC ‘s Morning Joe. And prime placement of The Hill on Chief-of-Staff desktops.
There are going to be winners and losers in the relationships Tom Wheeler fosters. He can choose to enact so called reforms which only serves to enrich the Telcoms’ revenue stream behind the Cheerleading of Globalization. He can choose to unlock the Telcos’ nickle and dimeing of the American pocket book. It sorta comes down to the truth of the President’s Hope and Change promises.
The People’s Dynamic
There is a principled dynamic to a National Communication Strategy. It’s the substance of those Landmark Books that anchors the narrative of the Baby Boomers’ nascent formation of the American Experience. The narrative romance and the reality of America’s Exploration of New Horizons excites the nation’s tinkering nature of the American Spirit. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company ended up being regarded as a Mega Company long before the term Media Conglomerate became hip.
Lilly Tomlin didn’t ridicule Ma Bell. She captured Americans’ connection to her. Baby Boomers all remember there was some grandmother or aunt who worked Ma Bell’s switchboard during the Depression and War Years. Remembers dialing “O” and getting the operator to patch you through to mom and dad when things were tight. When 411 meant talking to someone downtown to get the doctor’s number. Or Michelle’s to ask her out on that first date. Now all you’ll get is some dude named Lincoln in Calcutta pretending to be in Lubbock.
Shaping the Future
There’s gonna be a lot of Look to America’s Future Through Communications coming out Tom Wheeler and his new team at the FCC. But it is a future not so much coming from the FCC. The Future is already here. And it is held by individuals. It is held in the ways technology is utilized by moms and dads and kids and schools and churches and synagogues to manage, expand and celebrate our lives. All in the promise of greater national service.
We’re all gonna have to keep paying the Cable Company for now. There are, what, three legacy networks ABC CBS NBC scrambling for relevance in a landscape of personal choice. The Verizon’s are still with us as Ma Bell once was simply because the FCC ensures them a brief reprieve to continue collecting buckets of cash for 400 monthly minutes. Go figure, mate.
But do understand this, guys. And it’s key, Tom Wheeler. Airwaves Belong To The Public. Not, as the Telcos would have it, Corporate board rooms. Baby Boomers learned that in the Landmark Books.
As citizens we’ve all got our Work Arounds of the cable people. And, if fortunate, the FCC.
2013-11-13
Copyright 2015 MillennialMonitor.com