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...

The Federal Communications Commission is coming under intense political pressure to reclassify broadband Internet access as a common carrier telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act. Yet, almost no attention has been directed at the fine details of how reclassification...

This POLICY PAPER examines whether there is a relationship between regulated rates for "unbundled local loops" and deployment of broadband technology by incumbents and entrants. Using an econometric model that analyzes 2002 and 2003 local loop rates and takes into account price variability and...

The United States has recently reinvigorated its efforts to promote ubiquitous broadband at affordable prices for all Americans by both committing over $7.2 billion in stimulus funds and by requiring the Federal Communications Commission to issue a “National Broadband Plan.” The big policy...

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...

Fifty years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter warned the Federal Communications Commission not to view competition in an abstract, sterile way. To illustrate the dangers of using such an abstract approach to the key issue of ILEC market power, this paper uses the Commission's...