Another name has been floated as a possible successor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. The former telecom and cable lobbyist will be feted Thursday night by the Federal Communications Commission Bar Association in Washington, D.C. as industry professionals and lobbyists debate his tenure and look towards the future.
Inside Towers has reported that GOP Commissioner Ajit Pai will likely be named interim chair by the incoming Trump administration. Both Pai and Jeffrey Eisenach, who’s leading the President-elect’s FCC transition team, have a good chance of being named chair of the agency, according to experts.
Now, David Fellows is being added to the mix; Fellows is a former Chief Technology Officer at AT&T and Comcast. He also co-founded cable company Layer 3 TV in Denver, reports the New York Post.
The engineer, entrepreneur, and scientist also holds a ham radio license, Inside Towers learns in a review of FCC records.
One source likened the guessing game of predicting who Donald Trump will appoint as a “black hole.” Experts agree the new FCC will be more pro-business, which will favor telecom and other industries.
“Onerous regulatory burdens,” like the reclassification of the internet as a utility and preventing paid prioritization of web content will likely be reversed by the incoming chairman with the support of an all-GOP-majority House and Senate, predicts analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson. “What everyone is waiting to find out is what it will mean for mergers and acquisitions,” he states in the account.
November 30, 2016
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