During a webinar with iMiller Public Relations CEO Ilissa Miller, Chip Pickering, a former member of Congress (R-Miss.) and current CEO of INCOMPAS, explained how his company facilitates competition in the telecom and broadband industries.
“I came to Washington as a very young presidential appointee to the first president Bush and then joined Senator Trent Lott’s staff in 1992, and the first legislation I had the opportunity to work on with him was taking from the success of competition in the long-distance industry after the breakup of AT&T, and it really was the birth of what we now know as INCOMPAS—back then it was known as COMPTEL—and they were the first founding voice of competition,” he said.
When Pickering joined Senator Lott’s staff, he began working on bringing competition to the cable industry through satellite, followed by the wireless and cellular industry.
“The competition constitution that we established in 1996 is ‘all networks compete against each other, interconnect with each other, and that we have, as the law of the land, instead of a monopoly policy, a policy that promotes competition in every sector,’” he said. “COMPTEL, now INCOMPAS, was there to advocate when I was a young staffer, and then as I became a member of Congress and on the Energy and Commerce Committee from 1997 to 2008, they were always the voice for competition. Sometimes, it was a lonely voice against very powerful interests that were trying to reestablish—not that they could reestablish a monopoly—but to limit competition as much as possible.”
Competition for all
INCOMPAS brings together policymakers, university academics, and industry leaders to create and promote policies that facilitate competition between companies. The idea is to end monopolies and duopolies and instead create markets that several companies can enter.
“I think, whether it’s public housing or on the rights of way, giving the conduit so that multiple providers and competitors can come and compete for each individual consumer is a smart thing to do,” said Pickering. “Whether it’s AT&T that is building an open access network outside of its footprint, or others that are beginning to provide open access networks on a wholesale basis. Those types of markets—they’re not for every place or for everyone—but we’re beginning to see those market-based solutions for the world in which we now operate, where high-capacity networks and open access and shared infrastructure, both wired and wireless, are beginning to take root in market-based ways.”
Pickering also calls for competition-based policy regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI). INCOMPAS has established the Artificial Intelligence Competition Center (AICC) with the goal of advising legislators and regulators on policies that protect and promote competition in the growing AI field.
“So, we believe that, as we go into this election, and get ready for whoever the next administration is and however Congress is configured, politically on a partisan basis, we believe that for broadband there will be a large bipartisan effort to create a regulatory and legal legislative framework—guardrails—around AI and its great tremendous benefit,” he said.
According to Pickering, INCOMPAS can put together the right congressional relationships in the next administration to implement a framework that will allow the United States to maintain its leadership role in AI development and deployment.
“In our membership, we have not only the networks but also the data centers and all the leading internet companies that are developing AI applications, like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta. So, it’s really a unique community that brings all sides of the market together around our core principals.”
Pickering also pointed out that, unlike many areas of our modern governance, the telecom industry has been an area where all sides can come together, and he believes this trend will continue.
“We’ve learned over the last 30 years that most technology, telecommunications, and now broadband policy, has been bipartisan. So, where the country may be deeply divided, and deeply partisan, and having a hard time solving a whole range of issues, we’re very fortunate that in our space, we’ve been able to preserve and maintain a bipartisan commitment to how we look at things. Not that it’s easy—it’s not easy. And not that it’s not complex, because it is. But at least we have this long tradition of bipartisanship in this part of our economy and technology and how it affects our economic standing, international leadership, and national security.”
In addition to shaping policy around competition, INCOMPAS also works to remove barriers to network deployments.
“We’re trying to remove, whether it’s the railroad that serves as a barrier, the ability to attach to poles as quickly as possible, the permitting process, how do we get into the right-of-way, and so with all of those issues, how do we establish the best practices, the checklist of having cities and localities broadband ready so that our companies can invest and build networks as fast, as affordable, and as cost effectively as possible,” he said.
Nabbing the funding
Pickering explained that the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was paired with the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) deployment funding with a subsidy for low-income individuals, hopefully allowing them to afford and buy broadband service.
“I’ve learned that one size doesn’t always fit every situation,” he said, “and there are cases where, you know maybe the investment model to go into low-income neighborhoods is a different type of policy or approach. And so, I want us to be open to what is the best way to achieve the objective of serving unserved and underserved and low-income communities.”
Part of INCOMPAS’s mission is ensuring that smaller and emerging companies can access funding as easily as incumbent and large cable or telco companies can.
“New emerging companies have been very successful because they built relationships at the local level and at the state level and with their broadband office,” he said. “What I would encourage everyone to do is engage with your broadband office, engage with your local leaders and your state leaders, because like all things in life, relationships matter, and if you build the relationship, what I’ve found from the competitive industry, is that policymakers at every level, if you can go and tell your story about where you’re building in their state or in their district, they will be very responsive and they will be very favorable, and they will try to do everything they can to help you, even if it means that the big guys have competition.”
This ability to connect members to policymakers and decision-makers is another advantage of INCOMPAS, according to Pickering.
“Because the entrenched incumbents have not necessarily done a good job of serving and building out broadband to the country, and the service and the price, it gives us an opening as competitors to come in and tell a new story and a new way and a better way and a lower price and a better service: those are the hallmarks of our competitive companies.”
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Hayden Beeson
Hayden Beeson is a writer and editor with over seven years of experience in a variety of industries. Prior to joining Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, he was the associate editor of Architectural SSL and LEDs Magazine.