FCC Competition Report is one green light for AT&T-T-Mobile deal
BY LARRY DOWNES AND GEOFFREY A. MANNE The FCC published in June its annual report on the state of competition in the mobile services marketplace. Under ordinary circumstances, this 300-plus page tome...
View ArticleABA Roundtable Discussion Tomorrow on the AT&T/T-Mobile Merger
As I have posted before, I was disappointed that the DOJ filed against AT&T in its bid to acquire T-Mobile. The efficacious provision of mobile broadband service is a complicated business, but it...
View ArticleA Quick Assessment of the FCC’s Appalling Staff Report on the AT&T Merger
As everyone knows by now, AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile has hit a bureaucratic snag at the FCC. The remarkable decision to refer the merger to the Commission’s Administrative Law Judge (in...
View ArticleReal lawyers read the footnotes, but cite them only when relevant: A response...
By Geoffrey Manne, Matt Starr & Berin Szoka “Real lawyers read the footnotes!”—thus did Harold Feld chastise Geoff and Berin in a recent blog post about our CNET piece on the Verizon/SpectrumCo...
View ArticleThe FCC faces a fork in the road: Pretend scarcity doesn’t exist or actually...
At today’s Open Commission Meeting, the FCC is set to consider two apparently forthcoming Notices of Proposed Rulemaking that will shape the mobile broadband sector for years to come. It’s not...
View ArticleEnding Transaction ‘Mission Creep’ at the FCC
by Larry Downes and Geoffrey A. Manne Now that the election is over, the Federal Communications Commission is returning to the important but painfully slow business of updating its spectrum management...
View ArticleTears for Tiers: Wyden’s “Data Cap” Restrictions Would Hurt, not Help,...
By Geoffrey Manne & Berin Szoka As Democrats insist that income taxes on the 1% must go up in the name of fairness, one Democratic Senator wants to make sure that the 1% of heaviest Internet users...
View ArticleForbes commentary on Susan Crawford’s “broadband monopoly” thesis
Over at Forbes Berin Szoka and I have a lengthy piece discussing “10 Reasons To Be More Optimistic About Broadband Than Susan Crawford Is.” Crawford has become the unofficial spokesman for a budding...
View ArticleOf Cake and Netflix
My new FSF Perspectives piece, Let Them Eat Cake and Watch Netflix, was published today. This piece explores a tension in Susan Crawford’s recent Wired commentary on Pew’s 2013 Broadband Report. I...
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Two net neutrality events following oral argument in Verizon v FCC on Monday
On Monday the DC Circuit hears oral argument in Verizon v. FCC – the case challenging the FCC’s Open Internet Order. Following the oral argument I’ll be participating in two events discussing the...
View ArticleHow the FCC Will Lose on Net Neutrality
With Matt Starr, Berin Szoka and Geoffrey Manne Today’s oral argument in the D.C Circuit over the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules suggests that the case — Verizon v. FCC — is likely to turn on whether the...
View ArticleManufacturing (Broadband) Dissent
I have a new post up at TechPolicyDaily.com, excerpted below, in which I discuss the growing body of (surprising uncontroversial) work showing that broadband in the US compares favorably to that in the...
View ArticleWireless Spectrum: Free Market or Rigged Market?
The debates over mobile spectrum aggregation and the auction rules for the FCC’s upcoming incentive auction — like all regulatory rent-seeking — can be farcical. One aspect of the debate in particular...
View ArticleCourt strikes down Net neutrality rules but grants FCC sweeping new power...
Today the D.C. Circuit struck down most of the FCC’s 2010 Open Internet Order, rejecting rules that required broadband providers to carry all traffic for edge providers (“anti-blocking”) and prevented...
View ArticleWhy the Antitrust Realities Support the Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger
I have a new article on the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger in the latest edition of the CPI Antitrust Chronicle, which includes several other articles on the merger, as well. In a recent essay, Allen...
View ArticleThat startup investors’ letter on net neutrality is a revealing look at what...
Last week a group of startup investors wrote a letter to protest what they assume FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposed, revised Open Internet NPRM will say. Bear in mind that an NPRM is a proposal, not...
View ArticleNet Neutrality Regulation is Bad for Consumers and Probably Illegal
With Berin Szoka. TechFreedom and the International Center for Law & Economics will shortly file two joint comments with the FCC, explaining why the FCC has no sound legal basis for micromanaging...
View ArticleICLE and TechFreedom File Joint Comments in Defense of a Free Internet
The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) and TechFreedom filed two joint comments with the FCC today, explaining why the FCC has no sound legal basis for micromanaging the Internet and...
View ArticleDouble secret ex parte meetings at the FCC: Something’s amiss in the agency’s...
The Wall Street Journal dropped an FCC bombshell last week, although I’m not sure anyone noticed. In an article ostensibly about the possible role that MFNs might play in the Comcast/Time-Warner Cable...
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FCC restrictions on joint sales agreements: Yet another FCC rule without...
Recently, Commissioner Pai praised the introduction of bipartisan legislation to protect joint sales agreements (“JSAs”) between local television stations. He explained that JSAs are contractual...
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