FCC Relevancy 'Fading,' O'Rielly Blogs, Citing 'App Economy'

The need for FCC regulations, relevancy and function is "fading" like “a snowman in springtime,” due to the rise outside the agency's jurisdiction of the “app economy,” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly blogged Friday. Since services like Facebook and Netflix are increasingly competing or replacing more traditional FCC licensees, the FCC should relax regulations, O’Rielly said. Many focuses of FCC attention “need to be scrapped immediately,” he said. “Why, for instance, should the Commission spend one more minute adjusting the wireline separations accounting rules?” Licensees shouldn’t be thought of as incumbents “based on legacy notions of competition instead of marketplace realities,” he said. The current commission has relaxed regulations in many areas, “but there is capacity to do more if entities would do the work to make the proper showings,” the commissioner said. “If an existing FCC regulatee is in the voice, video, or data business, they should be knocking down our doors to demand fundamental and colossal relief.” The alternative to relaxing more regulations would be to “advocate for new Congressional powers to regulate these services,” but that’s “futile and unnecessary,” O’Rielly said.