It is important for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reexamine its policy research goals and processes and to encourage the entry of economists into the regulatory process. The entire regulatory structure of the FCC should be reappraised; regulation should be used to help the natural forces of the marketplace function more efficiently and should be based on the principles that the consumer should have the broadest possible services and that the prices of those services should not be artificially inflated. The policy analysis resources of the FCC will be channeled into inquiries that go to the heart of FCC common carrier regulatory policies, inquiries into ways to expand television programing diversity without regulating content, and inquiries into spectrum allocation policy. The social impact of new communications technologies, such as the two-way communications system now being tested, deserves as much study as the basic economic and technical questions they raise. Also, the United States needs to learn about communications developments in other countries and to coordinate its policies with theirs. The FCC is receptive to research contributions from disinterested sources and would also like to bring more economists, technologists, and social scientists to the Commission to work on specific projects. (GW)