Fcc Chairman Stepping Down Says Biggest Feat Is System Connecting Schools, Internet

Reed Hundt is leaving the Federal Communications Commission after a tumultuous 3-1/2-year chairmanship that helped shape the way Americans receive telephone, TV and other rapidly changing communications services.

With all the mergers and modernizing, he said his biggest achievement was putting in place a system that will allow schools and libraries to connect to the Internet at discounted rates.

“It’s going to put knowledge in the fingertips of every child and every teacher,” he said in an interview.

Hundt said Tuesday he had asked President Clinton to begin looking for a replacement and would step down as soon as one is found. He said he wanted to spend more time with his wife and three children.

Contenders for the job as the nation’s chief telecommunications regulator include Kathy Wallman, the FCC’s former top telephone regulator and now Clinton’s deputy assistant for economic policy; William Kennard, the FCC’s general counsel and a nominee to be a FCC commissioner, and FCC Commissioner Susan Ness.

Hundt said he will continue to vote on all matters that come before the agency. They include consideration of massive mergers such as British Telecom’s takeover of MCI and Bell Atlantic’s union with Nynex; proposed loosening local TV ownership rules, and local Bell telephone requests to provide long-distance service to their own customers.

In an interview, he recalled with a laugh some of the glamour and pitfalls of his job: “I have had lunch and dinner with two Miss Americas, been lobbied by Clint Eastwood, had my car stolen from the parking lot, been on ‘Car Talk,’ been in Ann Landers. … How can you beat that?”

His first major task when he took his job in December 1993 was toughening cable rate regulation. He ended up ordering cable companies to give customers another, deeper rate cut.

Since then, Hundt has steered the nation’s telecommunications policy through seismic legal, technological and business changes.

He was largely responsible for implementing Congress’ 1996 overhaul of telecommunications law, freeing cable, local and long-distance companies to get into each other’s businesses, deregulating cable rates and making it easier for media companies to own more outlets.