FCC’s Pai Lines Up Panelists for Net Neutrality Field Hearing

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai has announced his panelists for an Oct. 21 field "forum" on Internet regulation being held in College Station,Tex.

"It will be the first hearing held outside of Washington, D.C., during the FCC’s deliberations that will feature panelists with a diverse range of views on how the agency should proceed," Pai says. 

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) held a net neutrrality forum in Sacramento last month attended by Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, but that panel featured five witnesses all favoring Title II reclassification.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler just this week wrapped up a series of net neutrality forums at FCC headquarters that were live streamed, which he has pointed out were open to comment and input from interested parties from all over the country.

Witnesses for the hearing include Donna Nelson, chairman, Texas Public Utilities Commission; Edward Henigin, CTO, Data Foundry; Robert Hunt, VP, Guadalupe Valley Telephone Cooperative; Chelsea McCullough, executive director, Texans for Economic Progress; Joe Portman, president, Alamo Broadband; and Stewart Youngblood, ambassador, Dallas Entrepreneur Center.

A Pai spokesperson says a video of the proceedings will be entered into the Open Internet order record.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.