FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Remarks at Silicon Flatirons

The message is simple, so simple it can be summed up in a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s second address to Congress. “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”

All of us have observed the growing convergence of previously separate and distinct communications services and with it, inevitably, the growing obsolescence of the Communications Act’s categories -- principally the titles that address common carriage, broadcasting, and cable. While there may continue to be a viable distinction on the consumer, or demand, side, it certainly is no longer true on the production, or supply, side. As we consider the Communications Act, there is one high-level point that deserves emphasis. Internet speed means that even a new Telecommunications Act will be out of date the moment it is signed. The only way to deal with this reality is to have an expert agency capable of being as nimble as the innovators redefining technology and re-drawing the marketplace. In the event that the Commission is thwarted in its ability to apply its expert policy judgment then, in light of the new, ever-changing technology landscape, I believe the best and ultimate outcome would be Congress’s significant modification of the Communications Act. Bigger picture, the FCC has the authority it needs to provide what the public needs -- open, competitive, safe, and accessible broadband networks. Indeed, that we have authority is well-settled. What remains open is not jurisdiction, but rather the best path to securing the public interest. Those are the challenges that the FCC will confront with the Open Internet, the IP transitions, the Incentive Auction, and other issues.