FCC’s Mark Wigfield: ‘The FCC Will Do What Is Best for the American People’

telecommunications Mike GrollAP
Mike Groll/AP
Sean Moran

The European Union levied a complaint against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claiming that deregulating telecommunications will unfairly benefit American companies abroad.

The FCC announced a proposal to remove price caps on the Business Data Services (BDS) telecom market that provides high speed data for essential services such as hospitals, banks, and mobile networks.

However, the European Union does not appreciate the FCC’s proposal to deregulate its telecommunications industry. The EU submitted a comment letter to the FCC, complaining that the FCC proposal to remove price caps on its BDS market will give an unfair advantage to American companies.

The letter reads:

The European Union is concerned that this sudden change of course, followed by the rapid action that is foreseen in the draft Report and Order may be harmful for consumers and competition, and that it will further aggravate the imbalance in BDS regulatory practice that already exists between the US and EU and other nations.

In other words, the European Union worries that a deregulated U.S. telecom market would give that country an unfair advantage over their European competitors.

The EU also alleged that this deregulation may violate the World Trade Organization’s standards on broadband regulation. The EU encouraged the FCC to rethink this proposal to consider how it might affect European companies.

FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield said:

Chairman Pai’s proposal to modernize our nation’s BDS regulations will lead to more competition and infrastructure deployment. Each country must determine its own regulatory framework, and the FCC will not impose unnecessary and harmful rules upon the U.S. economy simply because other countries choose to go down that path. The FCC will do what is best for the American people.

Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, spoke with Breitbart News about the deregulation proposal. Kerpen said, “The FCC under Tom Wheeler tortured the data to make sure they could continue pushing for onerous regulations like this that pushed their liberal ideology.” He continued, “I think it’s hilarious that the EU would complain that America deregulating its telecom industry would unfairly benefit American companies.”

Phil Kerpen tweeted that deregulating the telecommunications industry is part of putting America First.

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