Telecom & Cable

Milton Mueller on internet governance

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Milton Mueller, Professor and Director of the Telecommunications Network Management Program at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies, discusses his new book, Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance. Mueller begins by talking about Wikileaks’ recent leak of diplomatic cables, using the incident to elaborate on the meaning of internet governance. He notes the distinction between traditional centralized systems of authority and peer-produced, distributed governance that rules much of cyberspace. He also discusses global democracy, contradictions in cyber libertarian views, judicial checks and balances on the internet, and future issues in internet governance.

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Tim Wu on innovation, creative destruction, and government interference

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Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, the chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate, discusses his new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Wu’s book documents the history of media industries in the United States and speculates on what that history teaches us about the future. On the podcast, he discusses Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of innovation, cycles of open and closed competition within industries, the history of government-backed monopolies in telephone and radio, and his thoughts on the future of information empires, the internet, and regulation.

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Jerry Ellig on the National Broadband Plan

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Jerry Ellig, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and contributor to the Surprisingly Free blog, talks about the National Broadband Plan. He also discusses network economics, railroads, and electricity distribution.

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Bruce Yandle on the rise of national TV and the spread of social regulation

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Bruce Yandle, Dean Emeritus at Clemson College of Business and Behavioral Sciences and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics for the Mercatus Center’s Capital Hill Campus, discusses the rise of national TV broadcasting and the spread of health, safety, and environmental regulation in mid-20th century America.

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Thomas Hazlett on telecommunications policy and economics

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Thomas Hazlett, Professor of Law & Economics and Director of the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law, discusses telecommunications policy and economics. The discussion also turns to the history of spectrum regulation, ongoing inefficiencies in the current system, and suggestions for possible improvements.

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