The Incredible Shrinking FCC

[Commentary] In the year since the Federal Communications Commission reached its full complement of members, it has been "picking at crumbs while there was a roast sitting on the table." Indeed, when the FCC became whole last August, there was a veritable buffet of tempting items from which to choose, any one of which would have set the FCC off on a course of action and shown that the Obama FCC represented the change for which the president's supporters voted and in which they believed.

To wit:

1. On February 20, 2007, Skype filed a petition with the FCC asking for the common-sense ruling that would apply the 1968 decision allowing any wired telephone to be connected to the network to the wireless world as well.
2. On December 11, 2007, Public Knowledge and others filed a petition with the FCC asking that texting and accompanying short codes be protected.
3. On May 20, 2008, rural cellular carriers asked the FCC to take a look at deals between carriers with cellphone manufacturers which left the rural consumers unable to have access to those phones if a particular carrier doesn't provide service in a given area.

Right there are three key groups of people in the country - wireless customers generally; those who use text messaging, generally younger customers; and rural customers - who could have been helped with minimal effort from the FCC. No new proceedings would have been needed. Even today, none of those petitions has been acted upon.