Baker Said To Be Exiting FCC for Comcast/NBCU
Republican FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker is expected to announce she is leaving the FCC for a post at Comcast/NBCU, according to a source familiar with the planned move, which could be announced as early as today.
The NBC side has an opening with the departure of Bob Okun, longtime head of the Washington office, who is exiting later this summer, while on the Comcast side, Joe Waz, SVP, external affairs and public policy counsel, retired last month.
No Baker staffers were available for comment at press time, with all said to be in a meeting in the commissioner’s office. A Comcast spokesperson had not returned a call for comment at press time.
The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in a blog posting.
Just last month, Comcast hired a former FCC Commssioner, Rachelle Chong, to be its regional VP of government affairs for California.
Baker joined the commission in July 2009.
She is the former acting head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration.
Before joining the NTIA, Baker was vice president of Williams Mullen Strategies and, prior to that, director of congressional affairs at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. Her resume also includes working in the legislative-affairs office at the State Department.
She is scheduled to go before a House Communications Subcommittee panel this Friday (May 13), along with the other commissioners, for a hearing on FCC process reform.
Her departure would leave the commission with a 3 to 1 Democratic majority, though a 3-2 majority, although Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps has indicated he is leaving sometime this year. His current term is up in June, as was Baker’s, though she likely could secure a renomination, while Copps has signaled he was not looking to re-up.
Mark commented:
COMCAST has demonstrated CONTEMPT for the csunomer when earlier this year it moved to digital programming and subsequently encrypted ALL content, save those explicitly prohibited by law: the local channels. The net effect is that every HDTV sold with built-in tuners, PIP tuners, and computer-based DVRs, all of which rely upon unencrypted QAM tuners to operate, were made obsolete overnight by Comcast. Comcast prefers to artificially insert its own proprietary tuner boxes between the csunomer and content they have ALREADY paid for, while collecting additional fees on the rental of the boxes to ACCESS that content! Now Comcast wants greater control over content? Now Comcast wants a stake in its greatest competitive threat: Hulu.com? I say NO!
Lynn commented:
Comcast and Verizon have NOTHING on Charter Communications, which is my carrier here in Spartanburg, SC They were eralady my carrier for cable service and high-speed modem, but in February of 2006, they sent a notice saying that my rates were about to go up unless I choose some newer, better package, so we got a bigger package, which was supposedly a better deal, and it WAS, for a while (of course the fees and taxes always added A LOT to the quoted price some of which I think are PADDING) Well, that was a 6-month deal, and in in August of 2006, just about the time I first got a small HD TV and added that service, they informed me that my rate was going up CONSIDERABLY, and the only way to avoid THAT was to ALSO bundle in their telephone service, which we agreed to do, since it would be the same or less than BellSouth (now AT T, since the sale) We had 2 lines here at the house one for my folks, and one for me As an adult on disability, I live here but have had my own line for many years, and the other line was always in my DAD'S name the cable bill, however, was in my MOM'S name, so WITHOUT ASKING, after they installed the new service, BOTH NUMBERS showed up in the phone book in HER NAME not even initials something most women DON'T WANT for safety reasons, and something that GREATLY IRRITATED ME, as one of those numbers had been in MY NAME since 1990!Furthermore, the half-wit, redneck, subcontractor they sent out to hook up the phone service (who came out in HIS OWN TRUCK, without even a CHARTER LOGO on it), CROSSWIRED our security service hookup when he switched our phone box on the outside of the house from BellSouth to Charter, and afterwards, when I asked him to check if the security still worked with the new phone service, he REFUSED, said he didn't have time before his next service call, and left Well, when I DID check it later, sure enough, it DIDN'T WORK We called their service department about it SEVERAL TIMES, and they FINALLY sent out a service rep, but he was one for TOTAL CABLE FAILURE and said he knew NOTHING about the phone service gave us the number for his SUPERVISOR, for whom we left SEVERAL messages, which never got returned FINALLY, about three weeks later, we had to pay the SECURITY COMPANY $75 for a service call to come out and fix CHARTER'S MISTAKE!Long story short, the new bill, after adding phone service, took us from about $110 a month to, supposedly, $143 a month, BUT after taxes and fees and so forth, it was more like $173 per month Then, when the 1-year promotion ran out this past August, the monthly bill BALLOONED TO MORE THAN $228 per month!!!We were preparing for an extended trip at the time, so I elected to wait to confront them about all this, and since returning, I just don't have the emotional energy to call them and I don't know what to do. The service is good, such as it is, but the price is RIDICULOUS and they recently sent us a letter that prices for some services are going up even MORE in February!Just WHO do these people think they are?!? We don't even get all the channels at this price! We have two sets with digital high definition boxes, get HBO Cinemax, and they throw in Starz, don't even get (or care to get) the Sports or Spanish language channels Just the other regular and digital channels, plus HD, ONE cable modem, two phone lines, but only ONE with long distance or any features such as voice mail SHOULD JUST THAT COST MORE THAN $228 PER MONTH?!?!?The only thing is, there's no other cable company in this metro area of maybe 100,000 (about 40,000 in the city limits, but lots of suburbs), and I HATE AT T When we had BellSouth, I would NEVER let AT T be my long distance carrier once choice became an option because they're so greedy and tricky PLUS, if you go with AT T, you might get the same phone service and similar modem service, but you HAVE TO choose either Dish or Direct TV for Television, which requires a receiver box for every TV, and I do most of my TV recording for time-shifting purposes on my computer, using Windows Media Center, which I'm not sure would work well like that (having a basic cable hookup to it works well, and it can choose the channels itself).So what am I to do?If there was cable competition here, I KNOW what I'd do!I'm just SOOOOO fed up!!!Jeff HayesSpartanburg, SC