FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is stepping down after eight years at the United States telecommunications regulator.
Pai joined the Federal Communications Commission as a commissioner in 2012, appointed by President Obama, and was elevated to chairman in 2017 under President Trump. He has announced he will leave the agency when President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve at the Federal Communications Commission, including as Chairman of the FCC over the past four years,” Pai said in a statement.
“To be the first Asian-American to chair the FCC has been a particular privilege. As I often say: only in America.”
During Pai’s tenure as chairman, the FCC guided the industry through the transition from 4G to 5G, oversaw contentious debates over net neutrality, and implemented stricter controls on Chinese vendors such as Huawei and ZTE.
“We’ve delivered for the American people over the past four years: closing the digital divide; promoting innovation and competition, from 5G on the ground to broadband from space; protecting consumers; and advancing public safety.
And this FCC has not shied away from making tough choices. As a result, our nation’s communications networks are now faster, stronger, and more widely deployed than ever before.”
Pai’s decision to repeal net neutrality protections will likely be the most defining and controversial element of his legacy.
Net neutrality rules, adopted during the Obama administration, required internet service providers to treat all online traffic equally and prohibited discrimination or differential pricing based on user, content, website, platform, application, device, source or destination address, or communication method.
After those rules were rolled back, researchers at the University of Massachusetts and Northeastern University documented examples suggesting some carriers have exploited the reduced regulatory environment to throttle or limit data speeds for certain services and users.
Not all of Pai’s actions were divisive. One reform he highlights is a push for greater transparency at the agency.
“I’m also proud of the reforms we have instituted to make the agency more accountable to the American people.
In particular, for the first time ever, we’ve made public drafts of the proposals and orders slated for a vote three weeks before the agency’s monthly meetings, making this the most transparent FCC in history.”
Under Pai’s leadership, the FCC also established 988 as the national suicide prevention hotline number, a measure broadly welcomed across the political spectrum.
(Image Credit: Ajit Pai by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)
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