New Comptel CEO Chip Pickering at a press...

New Comptel CEO Chip Pickering at a press conference Tuesday praised FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s principles. The principles Wheeler has laid out regarding the IP transition and spectrum auctions are consistent and compatible with CompTel’s values, Pickering said: “We are building coalitions around competitive policies so that we can help influence decisions at the FCC.” Ahead of any potential rewrite of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Comptel plans to continue educating those on the Hill about how the Telecom Act framework has worked, the importance of preserving “the enduring principles of interconnection,” and the importance of breaking bottlenecks to allow for access to customers, he said. The Telecom Act, along with breaking up AT&T in 1984 and deciding in 1993 to have a competitive spectrum auction, have created more economic growth than any other actions in the past few decades, Pickering said.