House panel details communications oversight plans

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U.S. CongressThe Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will be continuing to work on the incentive auction of television spectrum and efforts to change the way the FCC operates during the 2013 legislative session. And it will step back and take a look at communications regulation in general.


There is a business meeting on the schedule for 4PM eastern on 2/5/13 to discuss the agenda of Communications and all other subcommittees.

The overview of communications will seek to look at the “siloed approach” to communications regulation under which different communications categoies are dealt with individually and separately, and find ways to account for the increasing amount of overlap between varies categories that has been one big result of the internet age.

The spectrum auction process is ongoing, and the Subcommittee is eying the deficit reduction potential of the auctions, and will be staying on top of the project. And it is of course interested in propagating broadband service as a result of the auction.

The Subcommittee spent a lot of time trying to rejigger the way the FCC does business, with an emphasis cost-benefit and market analysis. Legislation was passed in 2012 only to die in the Senate, but the Subcommittee will come back to the issue again this year.

In other non-broadcast matters, it will be dealing with internet governance, spectrum use other that that used by broadcast television, and the development of a modern public safety network.