Michael Powell, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the past four years, plans to resign, according to reports.

Powell, a Republican and champion of telecommunications deregulation, plans to announce his resignation Friday, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal Friday. The Journal article doesn't cite any sources in its story.

An FCC spokesman didn't immediately return a phone call seeking confirmation of Powell's plans to resign. Powell would presumably disclose his resignation in a press conference, which had yet to be announced early morning local time in Washington, D.C.

The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a free-market-oriented think tank, praised Powell's tenure at the commission in a statement Friday. "No policymaker could have done a better job of articulating the critical importance of embracing the changes inherent in the digital age," said foundation President Ray Gifford. "The FCC chairman always puts consumers first, recognizing that the best way for the government to serve them is to ensure that it not prevent the emergence of a world of choice in platforms and services."

Others, including competitive telephone carriers, have criticized Powell for pushing to get rid of most rules requiring the incumbent carriers, often called the regional Bells, to share parts of their networks at discounted rates. The competing carriers have called the FCC's move away from the network-sharing rules bad for competition and bad for consumers.

Independent telecom analyst Jeff Kagan praised Powell's efforts as moving the government away from control of the telecom market. Government, by "getting out of the way and letting the industry find itself," will let the telecom industry focus more on technology and finances than on FCC rules, Kagan said in an e-mail.

"During Powell's tenure, the communications industry has decided to start a very dramatic change which will take several years," Kagan added in his statement. "It's changing from an industry full of smaller companies competing in separate sectors, to fewer, very large companies competing in the entire industry, and even blending the telephone and television markets. Yesterday we saw separate companies competing in different segments, tomorrow we will see fewer, larger companies competing in all the segments. The telecom landscape is changing dramatically, and it's the hands-off approach of the FCC that is allowing the industry to find itself in a new world of technology and economics."

IDG News Service

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