Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Kevin J. Martin, who was appointed by the Bush administration to serve as head of the agency, informed he would be stepping down the following week, when the new administration is scheduled to take over the White House.

In a statement he released, Martin announced plans to join the nonprofit leadership group Aspen Institute as a senior fellow on communications issues after his Tuesday resignation.

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to assign his technology adviser Julius Genachowski, who is a former FCC official, as the new chairman of the agency.

Kevin Martin served as head of the FCC for four years, during which time he added oversight of wireless technologies and high-speed Internet access to the agency’s attributions of broadcast and media regulation.

At the time he made the aforementioned decision, he explained it by voicing his belief that a competitive marketplace and not regulation was actually what best protected public interest and also what offered choice, innovation and affordability to consumers.

Kevin J. Martin is bound to be pigeonholed as the one who introduced a plan to open up vacant TV airwaves for unlicensed use, by forcing the winner of a white spaces spectrum auction to make its network available for outside technologies.

Still, the auction translated as one of the most lucrative ever, since it managed to raise $19.6 billion from airwaves that were won mainly by AT&T Incorporated and Verizon Communications.