SuperComm: Powell Says FCC Going Back To SchoolSuperComm: Powell Says FCC Going Back To School

The Federal Communications Commission is going back to school in an effort to help employees learn about current and emerging technologies and help them make better-informed and faster decisions on telecom issues that affect users, equipment makers, and service providers.

"We need to learn more about current and emerging technologies, rather than [relying] on companies presenting their interests to us and then having to educate us on the technology," FCC chairman Michael Powell told a standing-room-only crowd at the SuperComm 2001 trade show in Atlanta on Tuesday.

That need led to the creation of what Powell dubbed FCC University, a series of classes that the agency's attorneys, economists, and other employees must take. The grades they receive in these classes will become part of their job-performance reviews. A key reason for this effort, Powell says, is that 40% of the FCC's already-depleted group of engineers are eligible for retirement in the coming years. "I can assure you we are hunting aggressively for engineers," he added, giving out the URL for the job-listing page on the FCC Web site.

Powell said the classes and the aggressive search for engineers would help the FCC in several ways. "We want to make the hard decisions first and make them clearer without double-speak." he said. "A decision made too late is not a decision.

"Failure to act casts a cloud over potential business opportunities," Powell added. He vowed to speed up the equipment certification process to 30 days. He also said the FCC will let the market pick winning providers and technologies because the agency "has the cloudiest crystal ball of all."