A consortium of satellite service providers have proposed to repurpose by private sale a large portion of a 500 MHz swath of mid-band spectrum known as the C-Band. As is common, the plan faces some resistance, with much of the opposition preferring a public auction rather than a private sale. In...

This empirical study finds that mobile Internet use has a positive effect on Americans who sustain active job searches, cutting in half the probability that an unemployed person would become discouraged by labor market prospects and abandon efforts to find work

In the last year, many advocates have called for the imposition of Carterfone regulation on the wireless industry. The FCC partially heeded this call when it imposed open platform regulations on one substantial block of spectrum (the Upper C block) that was recently part of the record-setting...

In this POLICY PAPER, we show how the Federal Communications Commission’s regulatory process may be used to impede the efficient functioning of a secondary market for commercial spectrum. In particular, we show that imposing (and threatening to impose) significant conditions when firms seek to...

With the National Broadband Plan’s promise of an additional 500 MHz of spectrum for commercial purposes, the question of how to allocate those resources among competing uses and users will dominate the communications policy debate over the coming years. In this policy paper, we provide a...

In POLICY BULLETIN NO. 54, I compared fixed broadband speeds across thousands of U.S. and foreign cities. My analysis revealed that average download speeds for fixed broadband are typically faster in the United States and often materially so, and U.S. upload speeds are comparable to other...

Using econometric methods and data from prior spectrum auctions, this paper evaluates the design of the FCC's Auction 97. We find that the elements of the auction's design, including the size of license areas, reduced auction revenues by as much as $21 billion

In this paper, we consider the argument that Carterfone-type rules are required in response to mobile operators' use of term contracts, early termination fees, and allegedly restrictive handset certification and support policies. First, we show that such practices by mobile operators are...

In this Perspective, we estimate the auction revenue potential of the AWS-3 spectrum if licensed without significant regulatory emcumbrances. Using data from two recent spectrum auctions, regression analysis is used to predict auction revenues. We estimate the 25 Mhz block of spectrum would sell...

With the National Broadband Plan's promise of an additional 500 MHz of spectrum for commercial purposes, the question of how to allocate those resources among competing uses and users will dominate the communications policy debate over the coming years. In this policy paper, we provide a...