WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (AFP) - Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell said Friday he was quitting after four turbulent years as head of the agency which regulates the media and the telecommunications industry.
Powell has headed the FCC since 2001, when he was nominated to the post by President George W. Bush.
The 41-year-old Powell, son of former secretary of state Colin Powell, who left his own post on Wednesday, has been a commissioner since 1997.
Known for pushing more free-market principles in federal communications policy, Powell also over the past year moved in with heavy fines on broadcasters in an effort to crack down on obscenity.
"Today, I sent a letter to the president thanking him for the incredible privilege of chairing the Federal Communications Commission during his first term," Michael Powell said in a statement.
"With a mixture of pride and regret, I informed him of my intention to step down as a commissioner and chairman sometime in March."
His tenure was marked by several controversies, particularly in the regulation of speech, the rules governing media ownership and the introduction of competition into the local phone market.
Under Powell, the FCC imposed a record 1.18-million-dollar fine on Fox Broadcasting for violating indecency rules by airing a reality show with scenes from a bachelor party involving strippers and prostitutes. The agency also notably fined CBS 550,000 dollars for the Super Bowl show last year, in which singer Janet Jackson's breast was exposed.
Free-market advocates generally laud his tenure, saying Powell paved the way for greater competition and helped to accelerate advances in technology by cutting red tape and regulations.
"That competitive world wouldn't have been free to emerge if Michael Powell had listened to those who sought to impose yesterday's regulatory burdens on tomorrow's goods and services," said Ray Gifford, president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think-tank.
Yet critics complain that Powell has actually weakened competition by allowing too many large mergers and by diluting long-standing regulations in the phone and media markets.
"The long-distance industry has been demolished. AT and T and Sprint are pulling out of the local phone business. There's been enormous consolidation in wireless," said Gene Kimmelman, director of policy at Consumers Union and a sharp critic of Powell's term in office.
The high-technology industry has been divided over Powell.
The Information Technology Association of America argued that Powell "leaves a legacy of consolidation and diminishing choices for telecommunications and technology consumers."
"Though chairman Powell has been an advocate for allowing new technologies to come to market, he leaves a far more consolidated communications marketplace than when he began," said ITAA president Harris Miller.
"Business users and consumers have fewer alternatives because of his policies. Assuring affordable access to innovative services and applications over the resulting bottleneck networks will be a significant challenge."
But John Chambers, president and chief executive at computer networking giant Cisco, praised Powell for staying away from regulation of the new Internet telephony technology known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
"Chairman Powell has been a visionary in his leadership of the FCC as he truly understands Internet technology and its implications for the future of our country," Chambers said.
"His tenure as chairman will be remembered for accomplishments in broadband deployment, allocation of spectrum for wireless broadband and avoidance of crippling regulation on Voice over Internet Protocol."
01/21/2005 20:50 GMT - AFP