A Hillary Clinton Telecom/Media Policy Overview

[Commentary] What would a potential Hillary Clinton telecommunication policy look like? Simple Answer: A Third Obama Term. Most, if not all, of the current Federal Communications Commission and Administration telecom/media policy initiatives would continue with the same implications in terms of corporate winners and losers. But that answer misses two big points.

Point One: The Agenda will Change. As is true in any administration, the environment changes. For example, there are the issues that most do not anticipate that, over time, matter more than what is apparent when the new Administration takes office. So in telecom policy, there are a series of things that we believe are likely to happen for which the Obama telecom policy does not provide an obvious direction. We will discuss what we think are the most likely such events in a note we will release next month on the issues, both commonly known and generally overlooked, that the next Administration may face. Point Two: Continuity as to which Obama Telecom Policy? The second way in which the simplistic answer of a third term is misleading is that there was a significant change during the Obama Administration between the first and second terms. There were initiatives, such as with spectrum, in which the first and second terms proceeded in a fairly straight direction. But a review of the history illustrates notable changes in approaching a number of subjects.