The following is an excerpt from an article written by me and published in Politic365.com. With the presidential elections only nine hours away, I shared a little forecast on where the Federal Communications Commission may go on the issue of spectrum management.

Nine hours before the election and possibly a new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the issue of how best the FCC provides access to the airwaves by wireless communications companies may be approached differently depending on which party takes control of the FCC. Two commission members, Mignon Clyburn and Ajit Pai, are placing themselves in the thick of spectrum issues and their articulations on the issue of spectrum management reflect their divergent positions on the issue.

Specifically, although Ms. Clyburn would like to see the FCC ensure that spectrum is put to its highest and best use, she would like to see regulation act as the mechanism of distribution. “Regulations must adopt spectrum policies that encourage this process”, according to Ms. Clyburn. Clearing and reallocating spectrum may not be enough under the Clyburn school of thought. The FCC may have to implement policies addressing the structure of the economy, including the promotion of competition; encouraging investment; and deploying infrastructure.

Mr. Pai takes the overall view that today’s telecommunications industry should not be subject to the 20th century framework reflected in the current Communications Act. He wants to remove the uncertainty that eliminates the incentive of businesses to take on risk.

Unlike Ms. Clyburn, Mr. Pai places a greater emphasis on spectrum clearing versus spectrum sharing. Spectrum clearing sees a spectrum license holder, i.e. a television station, giving up all of its use of a frequency band so that another provider, i.e. a wireless telecommunications company, can exclusively use the band. Spectrum sharing occurs whenever multiple wireless systems operate in the same frequency band. Mr. Pai believes that spectrum clearing encourages more competition during the auctioning for licenses and that wireless carriers will have an incentive to invest more in infrastructure.

From a market perspective, Ms. Clyburn’s approach is intrusive relative to Mr. Pai’s approach. There is a difference between ensuring that spectrum is being put to its best use versus getting spectrum into the hands of carriers who value it the most.

Ensuring that spectrum is being put to its best use means that government will continue to influence the business judgment of a carrier beyond granting the carrier access to the airwaves. This approach would keep the cloud of regulatory uncertainty hanging over the heads of carriers who would remain in a near perpetual state determining whether their decisions on investment and infrastructure deployment pass the FCC’s test for best use.

On the other hand, getting spectrum into the hands of carriers that value the resource the most is not only less intrusive but measurable. The FCC can identify the carriers that value spectrum the most primarily by observing the bids carriers make and noting the premium that carriers are including in those bids. The lighter touch regulatory approach advocated by Mr. Pai should mitigate concerns about regulatory uncertainty held by wireless carriers.

Given the current makeup of the FCC, with three Democratic commissioners and two Republicans, the intrusive approach as espoused by Ms, Clyburn is prevailing. Which school of thought prevails between 2013 and 2017 all depends on what happens at the ballot box on November 6.

Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn made a couple interesting comments last Tuesday at the Second Annual America’s Spectrum Management Conference. My take-away from her remarks included her recognition that spectrum management should encourage the pace of innovation in wireless broadband especially given the new technologies that are being brought to market. Ms. Clyburn also noted that the old ways of making spectrum available i.e. clearing frequencies and reallocating them-would not be enough to meet the demand for access to the airwaves.

Ms. Clyburn also attributed the success of Wi-Fi networks to their unlicensed and free market characteristics. Anyone can innovate in the Wi-Fi spectrum anytime, said Ms. Clyburn. “You do not need permission. In addition, all sorts of devices and applications share the same spectrum without any difficulty. It’s also worth noting that unlicensed spectrum use requires less government engagement than licensed use.”

For investors considering investing in companies developing products and services that use Wi-Fi, a signal saying that Wi-Fi needs less government engagement may be a welcomed one. Less regulations means lower compliance costs and more earnings going to a company’s bottom-line.

And demand is there. A survey conducted by Devicescape determined that 88% of survey respondents believed that Wi-Fi was a commodity that should be made available anywhere. Sixty-four percent of respondents didn’t care who provided Wi-Fi services, and that 58% of respondents felt that Wi-Fi should be made available in public places including trains and airplanes.

I saw some of an interesting piece on shoplifting last night on CNBC. The reporter made the point that Americans, when unknowingly buying stolen razor blades at their local five and dime, don’t care about where the product comes from. They care about the price.

Wal-Mart acknowledges this type of consumer perspective when it provides head-to-head price comparisons with local and regional grocery stores. In these economic times, family budgets take a higher priority to whether the grocery store went to the most exotic island to find bananas and cocoa beans.

Consumers also feel the same way about their internet service providers and their broadband service.

In a speech delivered yesterday at the Federal Communications Bar Association spring luncheon, Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn said that,

“The FCC set forth basic rules of the road, so that consumers can have unfettered access to the lawful content, applications, and services offered over the Internet, in addition to the information they need to understand how their ISPs manage their networks.”

Access to lawful content, applications, and services I can roll with. Understanding how ISPs manage their networks? I don’t think so.

Consumers care about output not throughput. Americans have always been output oriented, whether the issue is politics or having a report generated at work by 4:45p. Unless the way a service provider is going to unleash an environmental hazard on my backyard, I don’t care what management techniques the provider uses to manage the process.

It’s disingenuous to say consumers care about this. Either that or the FCC is totally out of touch and more focused on appeasing the small group of activists who believe that Kafka the Bogeyman lurks around every corner and do a Tebow in front of a Don Quixote poster.

I prefer to say that they are out of touch.

Today Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn discussed the importance of small businesses leveraging broadband to be successful. Except for the Avis car rental joint on Courtland here in Atlanta, I don’t know of any small business owner or entrepreneur that doesn’t get the importance of broadband.

It can’t be emphasized enough how important it is to process, analyze, and distribute information from multiple sources quickly and efficiently. Broadband helps the business person do that.

It’s also good to hear Ms. Clyburn raise these points, particularly of how partnerships like E-Business NOW helps entrepreneurs learn the skills necessary for leveraging the Internet to start and grow their businesses.

Click here to read Ms. Clyburn’s speech.

I just finished reading Commissioner Mignon Clyburn’s statement on the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed rule making for media ownership. Ms. Clyburn expressed that she felt “hope, fear, frustration, expectation, and exasperation” regarding the tasks of pursuing diversity in media ownership while ensuring that the information market spoke to the needs of the information consumer.

The conflicting emotions are understandable when you see that the FCC must address not one, but two information related markets at the same time. One I term as the “media market.” In this market buyers and sellers of media platforms such as radio, television, newspapers, and online media properties meet and exchange these properties for a price.

The second market is the “information market.” This is where the news watchers and readers come and consume content in exchange for paying subscription fees or at least clicking on ads.

It’s probably best that the FCC delineate the two markets, at least for the purpose of coming up with actions to address each one. Both are related which drives the confusion. The player that connects the two markets is the buyer of media platforms. Once the buyer enters the media market and negotiates the purchase of radio and television stations, they are in a position to add to the diversity of viewpoints the FCC wants to promote.

The buyers enter the media market in response to final demand from consumers in the information market. It’s a chain derivative that requires you complete the work on one relationship before moving to the next. That approach should help alleviate the frustration.