Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
After three years of politicking, it now looks like Congress may actually give the FCC authority to conduct incentive auctions for mobile spectrum, and soon. That, at least, is what the FCC seems to think. At CES last week, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski largely repeated the speech he has now given three years in a [...]
Today, AT&T announced they had abandoned their planned acquisition of T-Mobile after the DOJ sued to block the deal and the FCC published a report sharply critical of the deal. The following statement can be attributed to TechFreedom Fellows Larry Downes, Geoffrey Manne and Berin Szoka: Nearly two years ago, the Obama FCC declared a [...]
I’ve written several articles in the last few weeks critical of the dangerously unprincipled turn at the Federal Communications Commission toward a quixotic, political agenda. But as I reflect more broadly on the agency’s behavior over the last few years, I find something deeper and even more disturbing is at work. The agency’s unreconstructed view [...]
[Cross posted at Truth on the Market] As everyone knows by now, AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile has hit a bureaucratic snag at the FCC. The remarkable decision to refer the merger to the Commission’s Administrative Law Judge (in an effort to derail the deal) and the public release of the FCC staff’s internal, draft [...]
[Cross posted at Truthonthemarket] As I have posted before, I was disappointed that the DOJ filed against AT&T in its bid to acquire T-Mobile. The efficacious provision of mobile broadband service is a complicated business, but it has become even more so by government’s meddling. Responses like this merger are both inevitable and essential. And Sprint and Cellular [...]
For CNET this morning, I have a long article reviewing the sad recent history of how local governments determine the quality of mobile services. As it turns out, the correlation is deeply negative. In places with the highest level of user complaints (San Francisco, Washington, D.C.), it turns out that endless delays or outright denials [...]
On Forbes this morning, I argue that the Department of Justice’s effort to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger signals a dangerous turn in antitrust enforcement. While President Obama promised during his campaign to “reinvigorate” antitrust, few expected the agency would turn its attention with such laser-like precision on the technology sector, one of the few bright [...]
I can’t help but think that there might be a big advantage of having the AT&T-T-Mobile merger go to court. For once, the high-profile action everyone pays attention to will occur in an antitrust forum where the decision criterion is the effects of the merger on consumer welfare, period. Regardless of what one thinks about the merger, it’s [...]
[By Geoffrey Manne and Joshua Wright. Cross-posted at TOTM] Our search neutrality paper has received some recent attention. While the initial response from Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal was favorable, critics are now voicing their responses. Although we appreciate FairSearch’s attempt to engage with our paper’s central claims, its response is really little more than an extended [...]
Vivek Wadhwa, who is affiliated with Harvard Law School and is director of research at Duke University’s Center for Entrepreneurship, has a terrific column in today’s Washington Post warning of the dangers of government trying to micromanage high-tech innovation and the Digital Economy from above. For reasons I have never been able to understand, the [...]
February 13, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
