Obama's F.C.C. Talent Contest

As Ars Technica has reported, in late October, former Federal Communications Commission Chair Reed Hundt was asked if he knew who Barack Obama might appoint as the next head of the FCC if he won the election. "Oh, I know who it will be," Hundt said with a straight face--then laughed. "Gotcha. I have no idea."

Betcha he's got an idea now. President elect Barack Obama is setting up agency review teams for his transition to the White House, and Hundt has signed on. Hundt was Bill Clinton's FCC Chair from 1993 through 1997. More recently, he has played a key role in the company that everybody expected to buy the agency's 700 MHz public safety license, or D Block, and then didn't.

What will these review groups do? They will survey all the major U.S. government departments, advise Obama and impending VP Joe Biden on policy prior to inauguration day (January 20), and keep the new administration's nominees prepped and informed as they make their way through the confirmation process in Congress.

Hundt will work on the agency review team in charge of international trade and economics agencies. Since his stint at the FCC, he has taught at Yale and written several books about information politics and U.S.-China economic relations.

Wireless worries

But Hundt has also been no stranger to FCC politics and policy since the Clinton years. In June of 2007, he met with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to warn that the wireless market has become "highly concentrated," with four companies dominating the field. He urged the agency to adopt open device rules in its impending 700 MHz auction.

By then, Hundt had also joined forces with another former FCC Chief, Mark Fowler, to lead Frontline Wireless (with Hundt as Vice Chair). It was Frontline that boosted the idea of a commercial license where the owner would build out a nationwide, interoperable broadband network, sharing broadband with public safety agencies in the 700 MHz band.

The FCC ran with the concept, and allocated it the D Block of its 700 MHz auction, which concluded in March. But, ironically, the D Block was the only portion of the $19 billion-plus sale that the Commission couldn't unload at its $1.33 billion minimum bidding price. Even Frontline wouldn't buy it. In a subsequent review of the failure, Hundt told an FCC auditor that the D Block's license rules weren't clear enough to predict how much running the band would cost or how much revenue it would generate for the owner.

As the audit report summarized Hundt's comments: "The strict requirements made the D Block appear more expensive and riskier than had been previously understood by Frontline." The FCC is now setting up rules for a new auction.

Beyond networks?

Other members of Obama's agency review team include Louisa Terrell, who has taken leave from her job as Senior Director at Yahoo's public policy office in Washington, D.C. Before that, she worked for Senator (soon Vice President) Joe Biden as his Deputy Chief of Staff.

Then there's Tom Wheeler, formerly with the National Cable Television Association and CTIA-The Wireless Association. He also sits on the editorial board of TCM.net, and has authored several history books, among them Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails. The tome explores how President Lincoln mastered the telegraph to guide the Union Army through the Civil War. Wheeler will oversee White House transition efforts for science, technology, space and arts agencies.

Wheeler's had lots of things to say about telecom and public safety himself, and wants to get his readers thinking outside the D Block box. In an article published in late October, he argued that communications is as basic to first response as the presence of police, fire agencies, and ambulance care. The problem, as he views it, is that Congress has become too focused on providing safety agencies with equipment or creating networks. Instead, Wheeler says that the emphasis should be on Internet Protocol (IP) commonality.

"Indeed, all the focus on a new wireless broadband public-safety network misses that it is one more unique network with which all the legacy systems will have to be interoperable," Obama's new adviser concludes. "If instead we focus on a common IP language for the applications, rather than the current fixation on a common network, we could enable emergency connectivity and information across all possible organizations, and at much lower cost--and we could give first responders access to information from a plethora of sources."

Also on Ars Technica:

• FCC OK's DTV Workaround
• U.S. Breeds Blockbuster Videogames
• Intel Enters Healthcare Field

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Laura Rich is a co-founder of Recessionwire, which provides news, advice, perspective and humor about the recession and the recovery.