Quick Hits
by Staff -- Multichannel News, 5/25/2009 2:00:00 AM
Copps: Broadband Plan FCC’s Top Project
Washington — Acting Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Copps said he was enthusiastic about finally getting to develop a national broadband plan, per Congress’s directive in the economic stimulus package.
Copps (pictured) said the long-term plan will likely be the biggest project the FCC has ever undertaken. He said it during an interview May 20 for C-SPAN’s The Communicators series.
Copps had no comment on whether the Internet needed to be regulated as a utility. He said he looks at it as “essential infrastructure … This isn’t just some super-liberal, do-gooder kind of social theory.”
“Can we find a way to make this open, dynamic technology run with, hopefully, a minimum of burdens on it, but cognizant of the fact that it has large economic and social purposes that need to serve the public interest?” he said.
Panel Backs Strickling For NTIA Post
Washington — The Senate Commerce Committee voted unanimously to approve Larry Strickling as head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration.
The vote came in an executive session May 20 that lasted about five or 10 minutes, one informed person said. Strickling’s full, official title will be assistant secretary-designate telecommunications and information, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.
Heading NTIA, Strickling will oversee billions of dollars in broadband rollout grants and the analog-to-digital converter box coupon program.
Aneesh Chopra was unanimously approved as the government’s chief technology officer, a new post to advance and coordinate the administration’s technology goals across various disciplines.
Full Senate confirmation for the pair is all but a formality.
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