CES 2010: Reports From FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Session

In response to whether the FCC has the authority to regulate wired services as telecommunications services, Genachowski said broadband consists of both wired and wireless service. In that sense, there are two classes of spectrum: one for government, and the other for the consumer and commercial space.

Genachowski pointed to the looming crisis in available spectrum for expanding Internet applications. Tackling this problem requires several simultaneous attacks on multiple fronts:

Find more spectrum and find how to get around physics constraints because of each type not allowing maximum transfer for data;

Make sure that the spectrum is used most efficiently;

Make it so that on the device and software level, devices are greatly more efficient and more precise in their usage.

Access to the Internet is important, said Genachowski, because of the fact most jobs are only putting applications online now. Digital Literacy is something we really need to put more focus on, he said.

For the evolution of the FCC, the Chairman believes all all documents the FCC collects should be open to the public and searchable for anything related. He referred to Reboot.FCC.gov, a new platform for communicating with the public to help spread information to the people, and to get responses back on how the people want the information.

Genachowski wants his work to be remembered at the FCC as moving the Commission to the 21st century -- to ubiquitous broadband, freeing spectrum, and helping inform family and consumers.

He said the FCC is a strange organization with comparison to similar regulatory agencies in other countries, because of the fact that in other countries, usually a different government agency handles wires, another one handles wireless, another one handles small scale electronics, another one handles large-scale electronics.

The Chairman's talk was briefly interrupted at one point by a heckler, whom we were not able to understand.