Carr Named to Lead FCC

We try to stay out of politics here and that’s not going to change today. But the telecommunications and internet infrastructure sector in the US will soon see a shift in regulatory leadership. Brendan Carr has been named by the incoming administration as the next FCC Chairman.

Carr has already been serving as the senior Republican at the FCC, which makes this on many levels a thoroughly unsurprising pick. His public statements indicate he plans to emphasize topics related to freedom of speech, which is a pretty fungible target. News sources suggest he worked pretty hard to publicly gain a bit of favor with the incoming administration to get the appointment, but a little ambition isn’t a bad thing.

However, I think that most of the industry hopes that whatever shifts he may have in mind, the FCC’s actual activity under Carr’s chairmanship stays at a low profile as compared to the national dialogue. There’s little benefit to policy discussions in partisan venues these days when it comes to actually regulating an industry. But whether that wish comes true will remain to be seen.

Much of the industry spent yesterday congratulating the new incoming FCC Chairman, which surprised literally nobody. It’ll be another couple months before he sits in the new, ummm, chair, so there will be some time to figure out what the new term will look like.

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Categories: Government Regulations