Broadcast Newsroom:

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras and the other commissioners unanimously endorse giving the FTC authority over common carriers.

That came in response to a question from Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) at an FTC oversight hearing in the House Energy & Commerce Committee Tuesday, a hearing at which Dorgan urged the FTC to better enforce its regulations.

Majoras said that with communications companies increasingly bundling broadband and traditional phone service, the exemption of FTC oversight from the latter is problematic. With the converging of media, the commissioners agreed the exemption was an anachronism and an artifact of a 70-year-old regulatory regime.