Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Robert McDowell today spoke before the House Sub-Committee on Financial Services and General Government, defending their budget for Fiscal Year 2013. Chairman Genachowski explained that then budget reflected a two percent increase over last year’s budget, and that there was no intent on increasing the number of employees at the agency.

As I later told a colleague, these guys could have merely entered their testimony into the record, and skidaddled back to The Portals after making opening remarks. Bottom line, neither commissioner telegraphed any scary or earth shattering policy pronouncements.

Both expressed their commitment to promoting broadband adoption and deployment. Chairman Genachowski also reiterated the benefits and uniqueness of the forthcoming incentive auctions approved earlier by Congress and scheduled for later this year.

Mr. McDowell warned the sub-committee that over-engineering spectrum auctions historically results in “harmful, unintended consequences”.

I’m glad Mr. McDowell raised that point.

After giving a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski’s expressed the view that broadcasters were receptive to the idea of the incentive auction or moving their channels. I do believe that broadcasters should take the money and run.

Consumers want and need the ability to communicate wirelessly. The demand for broadband access to the Internet has met and maybe surpassed demand for television in some areas except for the boondocks.

Broadcasters need to acknowledge this and start getting creative with the content that they either create or aggregate and determine how to leverage it on their websites.

The Federal Communications Commission seems to have found free market religion during its promotion of voluntary incentive auctions designed to free up spectrum for wireless services. Under the scenario described today by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, television broadcasters would put their spectrum up for auction and share in the proceeds raised by the FCC.

One friend and former colleague asked me a couple weeks ago why broadcasters should be paid for giving up a license to a public resource. My response was there was a profit expectation from having those licenses. They have to be made whole somehow.

I think the auctions are an overall good step toward maintaining consumer welfare in the wireless services market. Consumers rather engage in some form of two way communication versus staring into the television. Why just watch the news on TV when you can engage the news on the Internet? Why just watch somebody else’s content on TV when you can develop and distribute your own on the Internet?

One thing I take exception to is Mr. Genachowski’s reference to the auctions as a market-based solution. First, when government is involved, it’s not market-based. Second, if it were market-based, broadcasters would be allowed to play by being able to buy spectrum.

Anyway, if the auctions help to clear more room for cellular providers to put up towers and radiate more radio signals, while reducing my dropped calls and providing more voice and data packages, I’m all for it.

I am perusing Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski’s fact sheet from his remarks at the CTIA 2011 Wireless Conference in Orlando, Florida. I am so tempted to go Mickey Mouse on the FCC, but that would be cheesy. Ooops.

Seriously, Mr. Genachowski makes some arguments that completely support the premise behind AT&T, Inc.’s purchase of T-Mobile USA. For example, Chairman Genachowski cited the forecasted increase in data traffic expected over the next five years. The chairman pegs it at 35 times today’s traffic. AT&T cites this as one of the primary reasons behind acquiring T-Mobile.

Chairman Genachowski cited the increase in the number of downloads in apps. He cited 5 billion downloads in 2010 compared to 300 million in 2009. Again, this supports AT&T’s argument about the constraints on its network due to increased data traffic.

Chairman Genachowski also reiterated the FCC’s position, first expressed by the chairman in December 2010, that the FCC intends to remove unnecessary regulations that impeded bringing innovative products to the market. Well, the chairman should be pleased that AT&T is using a time honored, free market technique, acquisition, to avoid additional barriers to entry thus speeding up the process for getting new product to market.

Yes, Chairman Genachowski is saying the right things. He should take actions that back them up. No one is saying that the FCC should shirk its responsibilities for reviewing this transaction. The FCC should, however, consider fast-tracking its review. AT&T estimates and other analysts have concluded that the process may take twelve months. I don’t see the need for such a prolonged process. With agitators like Free Press and Public Knowledge chomping at the bit to intervene in the FCC’s review, and the size of the transaction, we shouldn’t expect a review of a few months either.

Hopefully the FCC can identify a “third way approach to approving the acquisition. Twelve months is a generation in the world of broadband.