McCain, Obama & the Future of Comm Policy

Kennard chaired the FCC from November 1997 to January 2001. His policies helped shape the wireless phone industry and expand Internet availability.

On the other side of the aisle, McCain’s tech advisers include former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (who became persona non grata when she told a Missouri radio station neither McCain nor his running mate, Sarah Palin, is qualified to run a corporation) and former eBay Inc. CEO Meg Whitman.

Powell led the FCC from January 2001 to March 2005. He and Martin, then a commissioner, clashed over drafting rules governing wholesale access to the biggest local phone networks.

Fiorina was the polarizing CEO of computer and printer giant HP from 1999 to 2005. She spent much of this year raising funds for McCain, and serving as his surrogate and chief economic adviser. But she disappeared from the airwaves in September after her remarks about McCain and Palin, although she officially remains on McCain’s staff.

Whitman led eBay from 1998 to 2008. During her nearly 10-year tenure she guided the Internet auction company through meteoric growth, including an IPO that exceeded analysts’ expectations.

Net Neutrality

No matter what, analysts say the next president will be pressured to get involved in the net neutrality debate. The struggle over whether providers should be allowed to slow traffic or charge for tiers of service has been center stage for months now. In fact, 26 percent of the nearly 300 executives surveyed by Pike & Fischer ranked net neutrality as the most urgent regulatory dilemma their companies face. Most of those execs work in the content provider and consumer electronics sectors, and most fear heavy-handed Internet regulation.

If Obama wins, "I think we will see much more activist posture," said IAG's Entner. Obama’s technology creed calls for an open Internet and that bothers a number of industry groups.

Based on their past actions in fighting against net neutrality — or for fair use — the folks at USTelecom, CTIA—The Wireless Association and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and others won’t be too happy about that. Tom Wacker, vice president of government affairs for the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA), said only that members are troubled by Obama's approval of "legislation that would mandate detailed net neutrality controls and restrictions."

As for McCain, if he wins, most folks expect him to follow in the current FCC’s footsteps regarding net neutrality. The fact that one of McCain’s tech advisers is former eBay head Whitman, who in 2006 begged Congress to preserve the “longstanding openness” of the Internet, could provide insight for how he might lean on this issue. However, McCain apparently ignored Whitman’s pro-neutrality position when he presented a policy that “is basically a repetition of Powell’s four freedoms,” said Blair Levin, telecom analyst for investment bank Stifel Nicolaus and a former FCC bureau chief. Levin was talking about former FCC head Powell’s “four freedoms,” which champion access to any legal content; the ability to run or use any application; the ability to attach a benign device to a broadband network; and the ability to get information about the broadband service. Those are the same four freedoms current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has put forth as all that's necessary for governing net neutrality.

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