From the yearly archives:

2006

Regulatory Status of VoIP in the Post-Brand X World

by Alastair Walling and Jerry Ellig on November 1, 2006 • View Comments

During the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission has engaged in a series of rulemakings to determine the regulatory status of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This paper holds that VoIP should be classified as an information service, rather than a telecommunications service, for several reasons.

Video Killed the Franchise Star: The Consumer Cost of Cable Franchising and Proposed Policy Alternatives

by Jerry Ellig and Jerry Brito on October 11, 2006 • View Comments

Congress, state legislatures, and the Federal Communications Commission are all considering proposals to reform local video franchising to promote competitive entry. Consumers should welcome such reforms. This paper estimates that consumers pay an extra $8.4 billion annually in the form of higher rates and fees as a result of video franchise regulations.

Buried Online: State Laws That Limit E-Commerce in Caskets

by Asheesh Agarwal and Jerry Ellig on June 30, 2006 • View Comments

Examining the economic evidence, this paper finds that state laws that impede electronic commerce in caskets would almost certainly fail a factual analysis used in the case Granholm v. Heald. This implies that such laws would be held unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause if a plaintiff brings a challenge similar to the one in Granholm.

The Spectrum Commons in Theory and Practice

by Jerry Brito on March 16, 2006 • View Comments

This article aims to show that, despite the rhetoric, the radio spectrum commons model that has been proposed in the legal literature is not an alternative to command-and-control regulation, but in fact shares many of the same inefficiencies of that system. If the government is the controller of a commons—as proponents of a spectrum commons suggest it should be—then in allocating and managing the commons the government will very likely employ its existing inefficient processes.

Costs and Consequences of Federal Telecommunications Regulation

by Jerry Ellig on January 1, 2006 • View Comments

This paper focuses on the effects of federal regulation of telecommunications. Key issues of interest are the effects of regulation on the prices, quantity and quality of service, along with the associated effects on consumer welfare and overall economic welfare. Regulations that primarily affect applications or uses of information that pass through the infrastructure are outside the scope of this study.