His formal title at the agency is “Executive Director, Omnibus Broadband Initiative.” In non-bureaucratese, that means Levin is in charge of getting the FCC’s National Broadband Plan out the door. The plan is due before Congress on March 17 and will be unveiled at the agency’s next Open Commission meeting the day before. Levin is no stranger to the Commission, having served as FCC Chief of Staff in the mid-1990s. More recently, he worked as communications technology analyst for the Wall Street firm of Stifel Nicolaus.

So, we sat down for breakfast and chatted about the plan for about an hour. Blair was outgoing and friendly; it’s hard to imagine a more approachable government official. But there were some issues that Levin was a bit reluctant to discuss, most notably my query about whether, in retrospect, it was a good idea for the FCC to define cable ISP access as an information rather than a telecommunications service. “I’d think I’d rather wait until I’m done with this job to become a historian,” he replied with a grin.