- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Policy Briefs Policy Briefs
5G Basics and Public Policy
5G technology is frequently discussed in policy circles, including at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in Congress
- | Regulation Regulation
- | Public Interest Comments Public Interest Comments
American Spectrum Policy Should Allow More Compensation to Agencies for Clearing and More Geographic-Based Sharing
The Fourth Branch Program of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University is dedicated to advancing knowledge about the
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Public Interest Comments Public Interest Comments
Montana Should Urge Scrutiny and Reform of the Universal Service Fund Subsidy Programs
The Technology Policy Program of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University is dedicated to advancing knowledge about the
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Expert Commentary Expert Commentary
Nationalizing 5G Networks?
There was a bold, bizarre proposal published by Axios yesterday that includes leaked documents by a “senior National Security
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Expert Commentary Expert Commentary
Spectrum Is the next Frontier for Infrastructure
In the aftermath of a natural disaster, policymakers often turn their attention to the state of the nation’s physical
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Expert Commentary Expert Commentary
Brent Skorup Comments on Tech CEOs at the White House
This week is Technology Week and tech CEOs are meeting President Trump and his advisers at the White House. In addition to
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Policy Briefs Policy Briefs
The Importance of Spectrum Access to the Future of Innovation
Repurposing spectrum for new uses yields tremendous social benefits, but all too often, legacy laws and slow regulatory proceedings impede wireless innovation. These delays impose huge, but largely hidden, economic costs on consumers, and the social costs grow with every passing year.
- | Corporate Welfare Corporate Welfare
- | Expert Commentary Expert Commentary
Trump Takes Aim at Wrong Regulatory Problem
Trump is correct in focusing on the pernicious role that federal regulations can play in economic growth and innovation. The problem, however, is that the rules are just the surface of a quagmire of backroom behavior by federal regulators and captive industries.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Expert Commentary Expert Commentary
What Media-Merger Crisis?
Federal regulators recently approved AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV and Verizon’s purchase of AOL and are currently deciding whether to permit the merger of two cable companies, Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Charter Communications. Inevitably, media mergers breed techno-panic in some quarters with a consistency matched only by the failure of their predicted disaster scenarios to materialize.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Working Papers Working Papers
Sweeten the Deal: Transfer of Federal Spectrum through Overlay Licenses
A new paper for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University shows that auctioning overlay licenses is an effective means of repurposing underused federal spectrum for consumer uses. Overlay licenses have been used to reassign nonfederal spectrum but never federal spectrum. The paper presents new evidence from a 2006 spectrum auction (AWS-1) that suggests billions of dollars of underused federal spectrum could be deployed more quickly than other policy alternatives. Crucially, overlay licenses allow agencies to receive payment for spectrum sales, and this reordering of spectrum rights would benefit taxpayers and wireless broadband users.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Public Interest Comments Public Interest Comments
Letter to House Committee on Energy and Commerce Concerning Television Regulation
The focus of the committee’s white paper on how to “foster” various television distributors, while understandable, was nonetheless misguided. Such an inquiry will likely lead to harmful rules that favor some companies and programmers over others, based on political whims. Congress and the FCC should get out of “fostering” the video distribution markets completely. A light-touch regulatory approach will prevent the damaging effects of lobbying for privilege and will ensure the primacy of consumer choice.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Public Interest Comments Public Interest Comments
Letter to House Committee on Energy and Commerce Concerning Federal Spectrum Policy
Former senior Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officials Gerald Faulhaber and David Farber noted without irony that US spectrum policy resembles GOSPLAN, the Soviet planning agency that distributed scarce inputs to producers in every sector of the Soviet economy. The woeful inefficiencies and waste resulting from the current system of regulatory allocation are predictable, yet avoidable.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Journal Articles Journal Articles
Getting Away from Gosplan
As in many countries, the U.S. government possesses a majority of the most valuable radio spectrum and pays virtually nothing for this natural resource. Audits by the Government Accountability Office and independent groups have made clear that federal spectrum is used ineffectively and that reforms are long overdue.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Expert Commentary Expert Commentary
FCC Does Not Need to Play Favorites With Spectrum Auction
The Obama administration’s infamous struggle with the online insurance exchanges should serve as a lesson to regulators everywhere that complex systems cannot be rushed. In part because of the website fiasco, the Federal Communications Commission recently delayed the uniquely complex auction of spectrum—the medium through which our wireless transmissions pass—by one year. Despite this attempt to get it right, the FCC may still undermine the auction’s purposes by penalizing some wireless phone companies to favor others.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Expert Commentary Expert Commentary
Putting More Spectrum on the Market
The "current system is similar to that of the former Soviet Union's GOSPLAN agency, which allocated scarce resources by administrative fiat among factories and other producers in the Soviet economy." So said scholars and Clinton-era Federal Communications Commission officials Gerald Faulhaber and David Farber about regulation of radio spectrum – the airwaves that provide us broadband and phone calls on our smartphones, send NFL games from satellites to our TVs, and connect our iPads via Wi-Fi to the Internet.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Journal Articles Journal Articles
Reclaiming Federal Spectrum: Proposals and Recommendations
With the popularity of smartphones, tablets, Wi-Fi, and other wireless devices that require as an input transmissions over radio spectrum, the rising demand for bandwidth is rapidly using up the available supply of spectrum. Spectrum demand increases significantly every year with no end in sight, yet the “greenfields” of available and unallocated spectrum are gone.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Expert Commentary Expert Commentary
The Spectrum Crisis is Upon Us
Scholars and government auditors agree: Federal agencies use their spectrum poorly. Because agencies have no cost pressures and don’t economize spectrum use, President Obama directed regulators to find 500 MHz of spectrum for mobile broadband by 2020. Economist Coleman Bazelon estimates that much spectrum would fetch nearly $100 billion at auction, and experts point to ancillary benefits of over $1 trillion if we can make more federal airwaves available for commercial use.
- | Technology and Innovation Technology and Innovation
- | Working Papers Working Papers
Reclaiming Federal Spectrum: Proposals and Recommendations
This paper discusses the history of spectrum management and the commercial and federal uses of the radio frequencies. Several policy proposals for reclaiming federal spectrum are presented, along with recommendations for rationalizing spectrum management.
- | Regulation Regulation
- | Research Papers Research Papers
Consumer Welfare and TV Program Regulation
Getting rid of obsolete regulation of the broadcast and distribution of video pro- gramming is essential to the efficient operation of a market that has the potential to greatly increase the benefits to consumers.
- | Regulation Regulation
- | Working Papers Working Papers
The Federal Communication Commission's Excellent Mobile Competition Adventure
Welcome to the Federal Communications Commission‘s 15th Annual Report and Analysis of Competitive Market Conditions With Respect to Mobile Wireless, released June 27, 2011. The FCC Report makes mistakes with the Commission‘s own data. It contains typos. It omits crucial, relevant, and available facts. It wastes page after page discussing tangential issues. This paper discusses the economic implications of the FCC's actions.