Family Online Safety Institute

Assistant Vice President, Public Policy
AT&T

Brent Olson serves as Assistant Vice President-Public Policy at AT&T, a premier communications company in the U.S and around the globe.  Mr. Olson's responsibilities include helping to develop and coordinate at the federal and state levels AT&T's public policy positions on a number of issues covering emerging services and technologies.  These include broadband, IP-based services, and video technology services with a particular focus on internet-related policy issues, such as net neutrality and online safety.

On behalf of AT&T, Mr. Olson also currently serves as the board chair for the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) and has served as a FOSI board member for three years.  FOSI is an international organization dedicated to making the online world safer for kids and their families by identifying and promoting best practices, tools and methods in the field of online safety that also respect free expression.  

Mr. Olson has 15 years of telecommunications law and policy experience.  Prior to joining AT&T, Mr. Olson served at the Federal Communications Commission as the Deputy Chief of the Competition Policy Division of the Wireline Competition Bureau.  Mr. Olson began his communications career as a staff attorney in the then-newly formed Cable Services Bureau of the FCC.  He then joined the Policy Division of the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau as a senior attorney in the wake of the landmark 1996 Telecom Act.  In between his two stints at the FCC, Mr. Olson was responsible for overseeing U.S. regulatory issues for Cable & Wireless, a global internet and telecommunications company, developing and advocating the company’s policy positions in front of the FCC and state regulatory bodies.  

He is a graduate of Northwestern University and holds a JD from the UCLA School of Law.