WASHINGTON-One word describes wireless telecom policy in the last 20 years: competition.
“Wireless was competitive before competition was cool,” said Brian Fontes, vice president of federal relations for Cingular Wireless Inc. and former senior vice president of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association and chief of staff at the Federal Communications Commission.
“Communications is now the most important part of the economy. Twenty years ago it was useful, but boring,” said former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, who works today with companies wanting to get into the telecommunications market.
“The wireless industry was one of the first industries in the telecommunications sector to be competitive and that had a positive impact on the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996,” said Michele Farquhar, former chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau now in private practice. People wanted to see the same competition on the wireline side that they saw in the wireless industry, Farquhar said.
