The goal was to streamline the video-franchising system and speed the entrance of telecom companies into the TV market to create more competition. At the Progress and Freedom Foundation summit here, McDowell said in an interview with Tech Daily that the order also was designed to prevent county governments from imposing onerous requirements on would-be cable competitors, such as helping build recreation centers.

In March, the FCC agreed that it should consider the same protections for existing cable firms. During questions at PFF, Comcast government affairs director Sena Fitzmaurice asked McDowell when that would move forward.

McDowell said his agency's Media Bureau is writing a draft order to be circulated about Sept. 5. "We should see that order apply the same deregulatory relief to incumbents," he said.

The commissioner acknowledged that states have sued the FCC for the earlier ruling about new video providers. They say that only Congress has the authority to make rules about the demands the FCC can place on video franchises.

But McDowell said, "We're confident in our legal position" and are willing to go forward and expand the agency's order.

McDowell offered more of his thoughts and leanings on high-speed Internet expansion in a Wall Street Journal article last month, in which he wrote, "When it comes to broadband policy, let's put aside flawed studies and rankings, and reject the road of regulatory stagnation."

He said he believes there will be "a tremendous explosion of entrepreneurial brilliance" in the broadband market -- "if the government doesn't micromanage" it with too much regulation.

In Aspen, he elaborated on his views by saying: "Regulation is for market failure. Competition obviates the need for regulation." He said he sees his role as helping "create competition both within and among platforms."