As expected, Blair Levin, major architect of the commission’s National Broadband Plan, announced Thursday he is leaving the commission for the private sector and a job with the Aspen Institute, where he’ll continue to work on broadband issues. As executive director of the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband initiative, Levin led a year-long push to drive the policy effort that ultimately resulted in the FCC’s formal broadband plan to, among other goals, bring 100 megabit connections to 100 million homes within a decade.
Writes the Washington Post on Levin’s move:
Levin led a year-long effort that produced dozens of policy proposals to bring high-speed fiber, wireless and cable Internet services to 90 percent of all Americans by 2020. He will join the Aspen Institute on May 7. He was expected to leave the agency after completing the plan. Levin has been a key member of President Obama’s tech policy team during the transition from the election to taking over the office of the presidency.
Connected Planet’s take,
Joan Engebretson:
We hope Mr. Levin will be able to talk to the press more in his new role. We always enjoyed interviewing him when he was with Stifel Nicolaus just prior to taking on the National Broadband Plan assignment. But after that move, he kept a low profile until shortly before the plan was released, when he helped with the efforts to pre-sell the plan recommendations.
Rebecca Arbogast has stepped into Levin’s old role at Stifel Nicolaus and has been providing a lot of valuable insight on regulatory affairs in briefings and research notes. It would be great if we can draw on both of them to provide insightful commentary as regulators and the telecom industry attempt to resolve a range of open issues pertinent to broadband.
That’s our take on this. Let us know what you think in the comments section below:
What plan? There are a lot of words without any substance. I attended the webforum sponsored by the FCC and the US Telecom, lots of talk, no details. We are going to move completely from funding a circuit-switched network to funding an all IP broadband network in the next five years, and nobody at the FCC knows how the transition will occur. If they do know, they aren\\\’t telling the industry. Also, what are Blair Levin\\\’s qualifications to create this plan?