07/01/2000
Pedal to the Metal
Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt tells tales of bureaucracy-busting on the Information Highway
Book Review of You Say You Want A Revolution, By Reed E. Hundt
When Reed Hundt took over the Federal Communications Commission in 1993, he stepped into a telecom era that appears, from today's perspective, almost medieval. But at that moment, it felt like technology and policy were rushing forward faster than ever. It was the early 1990s, before the Web, before Internet-based telephony or fast optical switching of undifferentiated streams of voice and data. The big buzz was about the convergence of TV and the telephone, broadcasting and cablecasting. Who would pipe what sort of communications into America's living rooms—and by what means? Owners of the various lanes of the nascent information highway (cable broadcast, wireless, copper wire, satellite) were jockeying for position. They worried about new forms of competition and eyed buying one another to prevent it. And their ever-growing army of lobbyists patrolled the halls of the FCC, ready to forestall any challenge to the regulatory status quo, which heavily favored the longtime incumbents—broadcasters, the local phone companies, and entrenched long-distance carriers.
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