The New Media Journal | FCC's Baker Concerned About Unintended Impact of Online Rules

The New Media Journal | FCC's Baker Concerned About Unintended Impact of Online Rules: "Meredith Attwell Baker, the newest Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission, spends most of her time thinking about the Internet — debating questions about whether it should be regulated, how it should be expanded and where the FCC can find the necessary airwaves to do so.

Internet companies, public interest groups and telecom carriers have lobbied Attwell heavily during her short tenure at the FCC on the network neutrality rules now under consideration. The rules would require broadband service providers to treat all Internet traffic equally.

Baker, along with fellow Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell, voted to move the rulemaking process forward, but made clear she is worried about the unintended consequences of any regulation.

“I’m not convinced we have a problem we need to address,” Baker said in an interview during a taping of C-SPAN’s “Communicators.” She also said there is “still a question of jurisdiction” in whether the FCC can legally impose such rules.

Baker has taken a keen interest in the spectrum shortage the FCC faces. As the former acting administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency within the Commerce Department that oversees the airwaves licensed to federal agencies, Baker thinks the government and companies need to use their spectrum resources more efficiently.

Broadcasters may be the source of some of the spectrum necessary to build wireless networks fast enough to provide broadband service, she said. The FCC is also moving forward to make empty broadcast airwaves known as “white spaces” available for unlicensed use, a proposal broadcasters have opposed vehemently.

“I don’t expect we’d take all the broadcasters’ spectrum, but I suspect that there might be some in there that might be more efficiently used in a commercial wireless sense,” she said. “All ideas should be on the table.”

She hopes the national broadband plan, due to Congress in February, will pay special attention to barriers that have prevented Americans from adopting broadband, such as high service prices and lack of relevant content."