Calling All Monopolies

Hundt, a Yale law school alumni, took over the reins of FCC in November 1993. Before this, he was a partner in the Washington office of Lathams and Watkins where he worked on legal and regulatory issues in emerging technologies.

Hundt took his mantle of a Goliath-breaker seriously, and has been committed to fostering competition in all the five lanes of the information highway that the FCC regulates. In order to bring in a market-based approach to the FCC, he tripled the number of economists in the Commission. FCCs spectrum allocation auctions have experimented with several new concepts. A licence holder is also free to use the bandwidth allocated to him for whatever purpose he wants. The number of licences the FCC has granted in Hundts term is in sharp contrast to the Indian experience where only two licences for basic services have been finalised so far over a period of three years.

 

The soft-spoken Hundt, who does not quite fit the aggressive lawyer image, is a paragon of diplomacy. When asked whether he foresaw an international regulatory authority in a world that is getting increasingly networked, he replied: No. Independent authorities can confer to make the policies consistent. For instance, if India writes an universal policy, we will copy it.

Hundt is also adept at evasive action. For instance, he did not touch on anything even remotely connected with the controversial Prasar Bharati Bill. And, when asked if auctioning spectrums to the highest bidder was contrary to the his governments objective of providing service at the lowest cost, he passed on the question to his young bespectacled colleague. No. On the contrary it fosters competition, and prices drop. I call it the Chorney doctrine. Jackie Chorney here wrote it and made a lot of enemies for herself. Ask her about it. Chorney looks at Hundt, and quips , I made one friend though.

According to sources, the latest issue on Hundt