In Transition | FCC

Friday, December 26, 2008; A21

How is the transition likely to affect the Federal Communications Commission?

What it does: The FCC was created by the Communications Act of 1934. It regulates communications by radio, telephone, television, wire, satellite and cable. The growth of the Internet and wireless technology has expanded the agency's profile, as it also oversees consumer prices and contracts, mergers among communications and media companies, and access to communications services during natural disasters. That has brought people such as Google co-founder Larry Page and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to lobby in the past year.

The FCC also oversees auctions of government spectrum, such as an auction earlier this year of broadcast television airwaves that will be freed by digital television conversion on Feb. 17. And it reviews mergers by considering whether the transfer of communications licenses benefit the public.