Abernathy Resigns From FCC]

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        [Dewayne-Net] Abernathy Resigns From FCC
Date:   Thu, 17 Nov 2005 16:52:16 -0800
From:   Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Reply-To:       dewayne () warpspeed com
To:     Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>



Abernathy Resigns From FCC
By Roy Mark
November 17, 2005
<http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3565236>
Republican Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said she plans to leave  
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Dec. 9. Her long  
anticipated decision to resign may, at least temporarily, leave  
Chairman Kevin Martin as the only Republican on the five-person panel.

When Michael Powell resigned as chairman of the FCC in March, Martin,  
then an FCC commissioner, was promoted by President Bush to chairman.  
Last week, Bush nominated Tennessee regulator Deborah Taylor Tate to  
fill Martin's vacant seat, but the Senate has not yet confirmed her.

With Abernathy gone and Tate unconfirmed, the December FCC open  
meeting is likely to have only Martin and Democrats Michael Copps and  
Jonathan Adelstein sitting on the panel.

"During my four and a half year tenure the Commission has achieved a  
great deal," Abernathy said in a statement. "First and foremost, our  
decisions increasingly reflect the wisdom of relying on competition,  
rather than regulation, as the best means of assuring that consumers  
get the telecommunications services they want at affordable rates."

Abernathy served during a turbulent time at the FCC where technology  
often outraced regulations. The agency was frequently taken to court  
over a wide range of FCC rulings involving incumbent telephone  
companies and cable firms.

"Implicit in the Commission's competition-oriented approach to  
telecommunications regulation is a recognition of the fact that  
competition is a journey," she said. "It is a journey in which there  
are winners and losers, change and upheaval, and no clear destination  
where all things are settled and all competitors are satisfied."

Abernathy added, "Our effort to create greater regulatory symmetry  
between cable and telephone company providers of advanced high-speed  
broadband networks is but one example of that process."

Bush nominated Abernathy to serve at the FCC in 2001. Prior to  
joining to the FCC, she worked in the private sector as vice  
president of public policy at BroadBand Office Communications and  
vice president fore regulatory affairs at U.S. West.

She also previously worked at the FCC as telecommunications legal  
advisor to FCC Chairman James H. Quello, legal advisor to  
Commissioner Sherrie P. Marshall and special assistant to the FCC's  
general counsel.

"All of our successes, and even our failures, demonstrate one  
fundamental truth: that regulation is most effective when it deals  
with markets as they are -- not as they might once have been, and not  
as we would ideally like them to be," she said.

Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>


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