Remarks of FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly
Before the International Institute of Communications’
Annual Conference 2017
October 11, 2017
Good Morning.  It is a pleasure to be here at the IIC Annual Conference, and I thank Chris and Andrea for 
inviting me.  I extend my appreciation to the host country and city for their graciousness and hospitality.  
It is good to see all the distinguished guests, except for my friend from Trinidad and Tobago, as her 
soccer – or should I say football – team defeated ours last night.  I also thank fellow panelists in advance 
for sharing their unique views and experiences.  
As outlined by our capable moderator, this morning’s panel is designed to help set the overall tone for 
the subsequent panels and discussions for the conference.  That is a lot of responsibility, but I think we 
are up to the task.
I provide the qualification that I speak only for myself, not the FCC or the Trump Administration.
Technological Conversion & Regulatory Authority
I will begin by suggesting that in order to properly determine and comment on the larger issue of how 
the world’s telecom regulators are adapting to the changing environment and technological explosion, it 
is critical to first recognize the differing levels of legal authority that respective governments bestow 
upon each regulatory agency.  In other words, regulators can only regulate when they are authorized to 
do so.  
In the United States, which has seen monumental technological advancements as the result of 
convergence and digitalization, we constantly struggle with these lines of authority.  To act outside our 
bounds – however meritorious it may seem – can be harmful.  It increases uncertainty and can paralyze 
entire industry segments for months or years with legal challenges and/or legislative responses, thereby 
depriving consumers of valuable services and opportunities in the meantime.  This isn’t just my opinion, 
as there are numerous examples of Commission actions to highlight this.  
The issue of data privacy provides a case study.  An FCC effort to enact data privacy regulations for 
broadband providers in 2016 was effectively overturned by Congress earlier this year.  One of the most 
salient arguments against our prior rules was that such privacy authority already lies not with the 
Commission but with our sister agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which had been actively 
engaged on the issue for decades.  The legislative action helped clarify that regulatory duplicity would 
not be permitted and the lines of authority are an important consideration.   
Accordingly, I think it is quite appropriate to characterize our position as having a bird’s eye view of the 
landscape.  However, this must also come with recognition that, to carry the analogy further, we are 
only allowed to fly into particular areas.
When these lines of authority are acknowledged, there can be thoughtful debate over whether they 
should be altered by the appropriate entities, in my case the U.S. Congress.  In recent years, their 
collective wisdom has been to not act.  This means they decided, either actively or passively, not to 
provide our agency additional authority and not to alter the regulatory lines between the FCC and other 
U.S. agencies, such as the FTC, the latter holding the oversight responsibility over much of the high-tech 
2industry.  Not only is this the right decision, but we are obligated to comply with such decisions.  Other 
nation’s regulatory agencies may be similarly and properly restrained.  
Cross-Border Regulation
But this situation also plays out across national borders as well.  In particular, the increased prevalence 
and adoption of the Internet and digitalization raises a related issue of authority: what role or right do 
international regulators have to regulate industries from afar.  Over the past few years, the U.S. has 
seen international jurisdictions attempt – and, in some cases, succeed – in imposing their regulatory 
schemes on U.S. headquartered companies based on tangential lines of authority.  In some cases, it has 
been based on the mere transfer of information, or data flows, internationally – and, in others, it has 
been tied to consumer usage and rather weak company operating standards.  From taxes and privacy to 
competition and merger approvals and beyond, there seems to be no shortage of interest from abroad 
in regulating the high-tech industry, and specifically U.S. companies, in one form or another. 
Take, for instance, the Right to be Forgotten. The interpretation of older statutory and constitutional 
provisions within some European nations led to the eventual mandate on data collectors that individuals 
be allowed to expunge any information, including accurate data, from their data profiles. This issue 
exploded because of protracted litigation involving Google.  While we could debate the merits of the 
obligations, which I find extremely harmful, it is troubling to see the capture of U.S companies within 
such a morass with little direct ties or physical presence within such nations.  
More troubling are foreign regulators’ efforts to extend this mandate to U.S. individuals by pressuring 
companies to do so.  It is one thing to have international regulators attempt to impose their beliefs and 
requirements on U.S. companies, to the detriment of consumers; but, it’s quite another to see 
regulators seek to stretch the scope of their regulations to apply to U.S. citizens.  
At some point, this begins to look a lot less like efforts to protect consumers and a lot more like 
protecting regulatory power or local industries.  This overreach has the potential for significant backlash 
from governments and the private sector.  Keep in mind that the pervasiveness of the technology and 
the architecture of the Internet means that companies do not have to be located in any particular 
country.  Instead, they can operate from anywhere, leaving the regulators with only one recourse:
preventing consumer access.  God save the regulator that tries to cut consumers from popular 
applications or Internet sites, such as Netflix, under the premise of “protecting consumers.”
Improper Intervention
Setting aside the authority discussion, there is an equally important component to this entire debate 
and one of the underlying reasons for this panel: what activity should regulators take, if any, to reflect 
the vastly changing technology marketplace.  Most of us maintain imperfect information about the 
dynamic technology platforms and applications causing vast disruption to incumbent networks.  The lack 
of data, the lack of backgrounds in coding, the lack of natural Internet boundaries and countless other 
limitations make our jobs much more difficult.  
I’ve been involved in government policy making concerning the incumbent communications industry 
and developing technology sector for over twenty years, and have watched the transformation of these 
new mediums from their infancy to the more mature state that exists today. My experience leads me to 
one conclusion: It isn’t our job to make ourselves relevant. There are moments in time when 
3technological shifts require different approaches and more reliance on the free market.  We are at that 
point with the Internet economy today. Boundaries between voice and video services are evaporating 
before our very eyes and their underlying networks are becoming unrecognizable. As the father of a 
two-year old, I am often reminded and find applicable the hit song from the movie Frozen, “Let it Go.” 
I will stop there in order to preserve time for more interactions with my panelists and questions.