Hal Singer, managing director at Navigant Economics and adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, discusses his new paper on wireless competition, co-authored by Gerald Faulhaber of the University of Pennsylvania, and Bob Hahn of Oxford. The FCC produces a yearly report on the competitive landscape of the wireless market, which serves as an overview to policy makers and analysts. The report has found the wireless market competitive in years past; however, in the last two years, the FCC is less willing to interpret the market as competitive. According to Singer, the FCC is using indirect evidence, which looks at how concentrated the market is, rather than direct evidence, which looks at falling prices, to make its assessment. In failing to look at the direct evidence, Singer argues that the report comes to an erroneous conclusion about the real state of competition in wireless markets.

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Related Links

• Assessing Competition in U.S. Wireless Markets: Review of the FCC’s Competition Reports, by Singer et al
• “FCC report dodges answers on wireless industry competition”, Washington Post
• “FCC Mobile Competition Report Is One Green Light for AT&T/T-Mobile Deal”, Technology Liberation Front

Timothy B. Lee, PhD candidate in computer science at Princeton University and fellow at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, discusses a variety of issues.  Lee parses new net neutrality nuances, addressing recent debate over prioritization of internet services.  He also discusses wireless spectrum policy, comparing and contrasting a strict property rights model to a commons one.  Lee concludes by weighing in on potential software patent reform, referencing Paul Allen’s wide-ranging patent-infringement lawsuits and the Oracle-Google tiff over Java patents.


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Related Links

• Bottom-Up, Lee’s long-form blog about, among other things, technology policy
• The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation, by Lee
• “Why Business Should Oppose Net Neutrality”, by Robert Litan and Hal Singer
• “Good Spectrum News from the Obama Administration”, by Jerry Ellig
• “Paul Allen’s Lawsuits: What’s up With That?”, at PC World

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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Related Links

• Tragedy T.V.: Rights Fragmentation and the Junk Band Problem by Thomas Hazlett
• [Radio] Frequency Allocation at Wikipedia
• United States Radio Spectrum Frequency Allocation Chart (2003) at Wikipedia
• The Radio Act of 1927 and the Federal Radio Commission at Wikipedia
• The Federal Communications Commission by Ronald Coase
• DTV Transmission in the United States at Wikipedia
• NTSC Standard and ATSC Standard at Wikipedia
• United States 2008 Wireless Spectrum Auction at Wikipedia
• Qualcomm’s MediaFLO and 4G at Wikipedia
• White Spaces at Wikipedia
• Open Handset Alliance.