Will FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin unintentiaonally stave off an unregulated telecommunications monopoly?
FOR RELEASE: Feb. 18, 2003 Contact: Bill Steele Office: 607-255-7164 E-Mail: ws21@cornell.edu ITHACA, N.Y. — Kevin Martin, a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is “an unlikely hero” for opposing changes in the regulation of local phone companies, according to Cornell University economist Alan McAdams. Changes proposed by FCC chairman Michael Powell could create regional monopolies that would stifle innovation and growth of open broadband telecommunications, making such networks more costly, less flexible and less versatile, McAdams says. “Kevin Martin has unintentionally emerged as an unlikely hero protecting the nation from a return to ironclad monopolization by incumbent local exchange carriers,” he says. While the debate at the FCC is supposedly about who will provide local phone service and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Internet service, the real battle, McAdams says, is about the future of Ethernet networks over optical fiber infrastructures that are capable o
FOR RELEASE: Feb. 18, 2003 Contact: Bill Steele Office: 607-255-7164 E-Mail: ws21@cornell.edu ITHACA, N.Y. — Kevin Martin, a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), is “an unlikely hero” for opposing changes in the regulation of local phone companies, according to Cornell University economist Alan McAdams. Changes proposed by FCC chairman Michael Powell could create regional monopolies that would stifle innovation and growth of open broadband telecommunications, making such networks more costly, less flexible and less versatile, McAdams says. “Kevin Martin has unintentionally emerged as an unlikely hero protecting the nation from a return to ironclad monopolization by incumbent local exchange carriers,” he says. While the debate at the FCC is supposedly about who will provide local phone service and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Internet service, the real battle, McAdams says, is about the future of Ethernet networks over optical fiber infrastructures that are capable o
