FCC Chief Vows Not to 'Sit Around and Suck Eggs' on Phone Upgrade

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler promised to move as quickly as possible to allow phone companies to upgrade to Internet-based networks. "If we sit around and suck eggs like the FCC did when they were thinking about should we use spectrum for cellular, we will have incredibly adverse consequences for the growth of this economy," Chairman Wheeler said at a policy summit hosted by National Journal.

The comment was a shot at former FCC Commissioner and Chairman Robert E. Lee, who served from 1953 to 1981 and once said that people who called each other on cellphones were "frivolously using spectrum." But Chairman Wheeler also emphasized that his agency must be careful to apply regulatory safeguards to the new Internet-based phone systems. "You've got to make sure you preserve the values, you preserve consumer protection, you preserve and encourage competition. And those are neither easy tasks nor things to be taken lightly," he said. "We are the representatives of the people in the midst of a tumultuous change." He added that the FCC only has "one shot," so it must ensure that it gets it right. "You can't do a Gilda Radner on this -- 'Oh, never mind,' " Wheeler said.