The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") recently announced a new "market power" test to analyze whether forbearance is appropriate under Section 10 of the Communications Act. As we explain, the standard for forbearance set forth by the FCC effectively renders, perhaps inadvertently,...

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 analyze the variation in broadband adoption rates among the respective United States. Significantly, we find that 91% of the variation is explained by demographic and economic conditions, such as household income, education and, most significantly, income inequality. Our...

Over the past several years, the FCC under Chairman Julius Genachowski has argued that because broadband is not universally ubiquitous, the agency may use the “reasonable and timely” standard contained in Section 706 in the Communications Act as an independent source of legal authority 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...

One important concern for the upcoming and highly-complex voluntary incentive auctions for broadcast television spectrum is the degree to which the largest mobile wireless providers will be allowed to participate. Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice encouraged the Federal Communications...

The FCC Procedural Reform for Openness and Clarity Encouraging Sensible Solutions Act (FCC PROCESS Act) is a commendable effort to improve decision making at the Commission, and upon analysis it is evident the proposed reforms would do much in improving both transparency and timeliness in the...

The extent to which broadband Internet service providers can engage in reasonable traffic management when faced with potentially congestion-causing applications like BitTorrent or other file-sharing applications is currently the subject of heated debate. This Paper provides a formal economic...

Matthew Lasar asks the $64,000 question on Ars Technica: "Did Congress really give the FCC power to protect the Net? The jurisdictional question, as Lasar notes, lies at the heart of the viability of the FCC's proposed net neutrality rules. The answer depends on one's view of what regulatory...