FCC Attempts Move to More Transparency and More Independence
The FCC is beginning to rethink its role, up its transparency, and consider lessening the influence of outside experts (and lobbyists). Not everyone's convinced it can pull off the change.
Criticized for being too reliant on input from industry lobbyists and too inadequately staffed to answer technical questions for itself, the Federal Communications Commission is beginning to rethink its role, up its transparency, and consider lessening the influence of outside experts (and lobbyists).
The Federal Communications Commission hasn't always been known as a paragon of transparency and technical prowess, but there is a reform movement brewing within the agency that is charged with overseeing much of the Internet industry.
FCC officials described efforts to modernize and streamline the agency's arcane operations at an event in Washington Friday morning, a transparency push that will see greater use of the Web for submitting filings and publishing draft rules when the commission issues a notice of proposed rule-making.
"This is something the agency had gotten away from over the decades," said FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick. "What we're moving towards is as close to full online filing as we can get."
Read "Envisioning an FCC for the Internet Age" at Enterprise Networking Planet
