It is no exaggeration to say that what happens at the Federal Communications Commission over the next year will determine the landscape of the U.S. telecom industry for many years to come.

Of course, the converse is also true--what doesn't happen at the FCC over the next year will determine the landscape of the U.S. telecom industry for many years to come.

The U.S. Supreme Court made it clear it is the FCC's job to determine how best to balance the interests of commerce with those of the consumer. Now the agency must set about doing just that.

The question is whether this group of regulators can come up with a new approach to some age-old issues or whether the momentum of the free-market, less regulated approach is too great to resist.

In many of the countries that lead the U.S. in broadband penetration, government funding or incentives have played a role. In the U.S., our fearless leader states that we should have broadband to every house in the U.S. by 2007--then apparently decides to rely on a duopoly of companies to accomplish that goal.

I'm not pretending to have easy answers at my fingertips--if I did, I surely wouldn't be giving them away in an e-newsletter. But it is worth a look, at least, at how the Europeans, for example, are approaching broadband competition and if there is something to be learned.

Right now, the FCC may be limited in what it can do, but congressional telecom reform could also be just around the bend. This is a chance to get things back on track in terms of bringing broadband infrastructure to small towns as well as big university campuses, making sure access to Internet content isn't concentrated in the hands of a few big companies, and enabling our economy and particularly our technology industry to thrive in the global marketplace.

That's a lot to lay at the feet of a small group of people in Washington, D.C., but it's their job and how well they do it will put in place the future framework for success or failure of competitive telecom.

E-mail me at CWilson3@primediabusiness.com.