Kevin Martin thinks so. Speaking here at the National Press Club yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission's chairman weighed his oversight of major FCC efforts that, he said, guided the telecom industry toward greater network openness.

And, Martin added, he managed to do so without relying too much on the heavy hand of regulation.

During the annual telecom summit hosted here in Washington by the Phoenix Center, a Washington think tank, Martin talked of the balancing act between carriers -- who are reluctant to open access to their networks -- and the growing demands of device and application makers, who insist on an open-platform model.

In particular, he was pleased with the trend toward openness that had been set in motion during the FCC's 700 MHz spectrum auction, which concluded earlier this year.

Under rules pushed by Martin, the winner of the most valuable swath of that spectrum, known as the C block, could use it to build a network only if they agreed to make it be compatible with all applications and devices.

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