I write about telecom and tech policy and have found that lawmakers and regulators are eager to learn about new technologies. That said, I find that good tech policies usually die of neglect as lawmakers and lobbyists get busy patching up or growing “legacy” policy areas, like public pensions, income taxes, Medicare, school financing, and so forth. So it was a pleasant surprise this spring to see Arizona lawmakers prioritize and pass several laws that anticipate and encourage brand-new technologies and industries.

Flying cars, autonomous vehicles, telehealth–legislating in any one of these novel legal areas is noteworthy. New laws in all of these areas, plus other tech areas, as Arizona did in 2021, is a huge achievement and an invitation to entrepreneurs and industry to build in Arizona.

Re: AVs and telehealth, Arizona was already a national leader in autonomous vehicles and Gov. Ducey in 2015 created the first (to my knowledge) statewide AV task force, something that was imitated nationwide. A new law codifies some of those executive orders and establishes safety rules for testing and commercializing AVs. Another law liberalizes and mainstreams telehealth as an alternative to in-person doctor visits. 

A few highlights about new Arizona laws on legal areas I’ve followed more closely:

1. Urban air mobility and passenger drones

Arizona lawmakers passed a law (HB 2485) creating an Urban Air Mobility study committee. 26 members of public and private representatives are charged with evaluating current regulations that affect and impede the urban air mobility industry and making recommendations to lawmakers. “Urban air mobility” refers to the growing aviation industry devoted to new, small aircraft designs, including eVTOL and passenger drones, for the air taxi industry. Despite the name, urban air mobility includes intra-city (say, central business district to airport) aviation as well as regional aviation between small cities.

The law is well timed. The US Air Force is giving eVTOL aircraft companies access to military airspace and facilities this year, in part to jumpstart the US commercial eVTOL industry, and NASA recently released a new study (PDF) about regional aviation and technology. NASA and the FAA last year also endorsed the idea of urban air mobility corridors and it’s part of the national strategy for new aviation.

The federal government partnering with cities and state DOTs in the next few years to study air taxis and to test the corridor concept. This Arizona study committee might be to identify possible UAM aerial corridors in the state and cargo missions for experimental UAM flights. They could also identify the regulatory and zoning obstacles to, say, constructing or retrofitting a 2-story air taxi vertiport in downtown Phoenix or Tucson.

Several states have drone advisory committees but this law makes Arizona a trailblazer nationally when it comes to urban air mobility. Very few states have made this a legislative priority: In May 2020 Oklahoma law created a task force to examine autonomous vehicle and passenger drones. Texas joined Oklahoma and Arizona on this front–this week Gov. Abbot signed a similar law creating an urban air mobility committee.

2. Smart corridor and broadband infrastructure construction

Infrastructure companies nationwide are begging state and local officials to allow them to build along roadways. These “smart road” projects include installing 5G antennas, fiber optics, lidar, GPS nodes, and other technologies for broadband or for connected and autonomous vehicles. To respond to that trend, Arizona passed a law (HB 2596) on May 10 that allows the state DOT–solely or via public-private partnership–to construct and lease out roadside passive infrastructure.

In particular, the new law allows the state DOT to construct, manage, and lease out passive “telecommunication facilities”–not simply conduit, which was allowed under existing law. “Telecommunication facilities” is defined broadly:

Any cable, line, fiber, wire, conduit, innerduct, access manhole, handhole, tower, hut, pedestal, pole, box, transmitting equipment, receiving equipment or power equipment or any other equipment, system or device that is used to transmit, receive, produce or distribute by wireless, wireline, electronic or optical signal for communication purposes.

The new Section 28-7383 also allows the state to enter into an agreement with a public or private entity “for the purpose of using, managing or operating” these state-owned assets. Access to all infrastructure must be non-exclusive, in order to promote competition between telecom and smart city providers. Access to the rights-of-way and infrastructure must also be non-discriminatory, which prevents a public-private partner from favoring its affiliated or favored providers. 

Leasing revenues from private companies using the roadside infrastructure are deposited into a new Smart Corridor Trust Fund, which is used to expand the smart corridor network infrastructure. The project also means it’s easier for multiple providers to access the rights-of-way and roadside infrastructure, making it easier to deploy 5G antennas and extend fiber backhaul and Internet connectivity to rural areas.

It’s the most ambitious smart corridor and telecom infrastructure deployment program I’ve seen. There have been some smaller projects involving the competitive leasing of roadside conduit and poles, like in Lincoln, Nebraska and a proposal in Michigan, but I don’t know of any state encouraging this statewide.

For more about this topic of public-private partnerships and open-access smart corridors, you can read my law review article with Prof. Korok Ray: Smart Cities, Dumb Infrastructure.

3. Legal protections for residents to install broadband infrastructure on their property

Finally, in May, Gov. Ducey signed a law (HB 2711) sponsored by Rep. Nutt that protects that resembles and supplements the FCC’s “over-the-air-reception-device” rules that protect homeowner installations of wireless broadband antennas. Many renters and landowners–especially in rural areas where wireless home Internet makes more sense–want to install wireless broadband antennas on their property, and this Arizona law protects them from local zoning and permitting regulations that would “unreasonably” delay or raise the cost of installation of antennas. (This is sometimes called the “pizza box rule”–the antenna is protected if it’s smaller than 1 meter diameter.) Without this state law and the FCC rules, towns and counties could and would prohibit antennas or fine residents and broadband companies for installing small broadband and TV antennas on the grounds that the antennas are an unpermitted accessory structure or zoning violation.

The FCC’s new 2021 rules are broader and protect certain types of outdoor 5G and WiFi antennas that serve multiple households. The Arizona law doesn’t extend to these “one-to-many” antennas but its protections supplement those FCC rules and clearer than FCC rules, which can directly regulate antennas but not town and city officials. Between the FCC rules and the Arizona law, Arizona households and renters have new, substantial freedom to install 5G and other wireless antennas on their rooftops, balconies, and yard poles. In rural areas especially this will help get infrastructure and small broadband antennas installed quickly on private property.

Too often, policy debates by state lawmakers and agencies are dominated by incremental reforms of longstanding issues and established industries. Very few states plant the seeds–via policy and law–for promotion of new industries. Passenger drones, smart corridors, autonomous vehicles, and drone delivery are maturing as technologies. Preparing for those industries signals to companies and their investors that innovation, legal clarity, and investment is a priority for the state. Hopefully other states will take Arizona’s lead and look to encouraging the industries and services of the future.

By Brent Skorup and Trace Mitchell

An important benefit of 5G cellular technology is more bandwidth and more reliable wireless services. This means carriers can offer more niche services, like smart glasses for the blind and remote assistance for autonomous vehicles. A Vox article last week explored an issue familiar to technology experts: will millions of new 5G transmitters and devices increase cancer risk? It’s an important question but, in short, we’re not losing sleep over it.

5G differs from previous generations of cellular technology in that “densification” is important–putting smaller transmitters throughout neighborhoods. This densification process means that cities must regularly approve operators’ plans to upgrade infrastructure and install devices on public rights-of-way. However, some homeowners and activists are resisting 5G deployment because they fear more transmitters will lead to more radiation and cancer. (Under federal law, the FCC has safety requirements for emitters like cell towers and 5G. Therefore, state and local regulators are not allowed to make permitting decisions based on what they or their constituents believe are the effects of wireless emissions.)

We aren’t public health experts; however, we are technology researchers and decided to explore the telecom data to see if there is a relationship. If radio transmissions increase cancer, we should expect to see a correlation between the number of cellular transmitters and cancer rates. Presumably there is a cumulative effect: the more cellular radiation people are exposed to, the higher the cancer rates.

From what we can tell, there is no link between cellular systems and cancer. Despite a huge increase in the number of transmitters in the US since 2000, the nervous system cancer rate hasn’t budged.  In the US the number of wireless transmitters have increased massively–300%–in 15 years. (This is on the conservative side–there are tens of millions of WiFi devices that are also transmitting but are not counted here.)

But the US cancer rate is the dog that didn’t bark. In that same span of time, the type of cancers you would expect if cellphones pose a cancer risk–brain and nervous systems–have remained flat. If anything, as the NIH has said, these cancer rates have fallen slightly.

It’s a seeming paradox: In the US there was an introduction of 300,000 fairly powerful cell transmitters and hundreds of millions of (lower-power) devices that transmit signals through the air twenty four hours per day, seven days per week, every day of the year, yet these transmissions have no apparent effect on cancer rates.

The fear of 4G and 5G transmitters is due to a common misunderstanding about radiation. Significant exposure to ionizing radiation , the kind put off by X-rays and ultraviolet light, does have the potential to cause cancer. However, as the Vox article and other experts point out, cellular systems and devices don’t put off ionizing radiation. Tech devices emit a form of non-ionizing radiation , the type of radiation you receive from the visible light that bounces off, say, a book you hold in your hand. Unlike ionizing radiation, this non-ionizing radiation is too weak to alter DNA.

More research would be welcomed. The Vox article notes that much of the wireless system-cancer research is low-quality. Further, while wireless systems don’t seem to cause DNA damage there may be other effects on cells. A very focused wireless transmission from inches away can excite molecules and raise the temperature–this is how a microwave oven works–so it might be a good idea to keep your cellphone on your desk, not in your pocket, when possible. In the end, however, resist the technopanic–we don’t see much to be concerned about.

By Brent Skorup and Michael Kotrous

In 1999, the FCC completed one of its last spectrum “beauty contests.” A sizable segment of spectrum was set aside for free for the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and DOT-selected device companies to develop DSRC, a communications standard for wireless automotive communications, like vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). The government’s grand plans for DSRC never materialized and in the intervening 20 years, new tech—like lidar, radar, and cellular systems—advanced and now does most of what regulators planned for DSRC.

Too often, however, government technology plans linger, kept alive by interest groups that rely on the new regulatory privilege, even when the market moves on. At the eleventh hour of the Obama administration, NHTSA proposed mandating DSRC devices in all new vehicles, an unprecedented move that Brent and other free-market groups opposed in public interest comment filings.  As Brent wrote last year ,

In the fast-moving connected car marketplace, there is no reason to force products with reliability problems [like DSRC] on consumers. Any government-designed technology that is “so good it must be mandated” warrants extreme skepticism….

Further,

Rather than compel automakers to add costly DSRC systems to cars, NHTSA should consider a certification or emblem system for vehicle-to-vehicle safety technologies, similar to its five-star crash safety ratings. Light-touch regulatory treatment would empower consumer choice and allow time for connected car innovations to develop.

Fortunately, the Trump administration put the brakes on the mandate , which would have added cost and complexity to cars for uncertain and unlikely benefits.

However, some regulators and companies are trying to revive the DSRC device industry while NHTSA’s proposed DSRC mandate is on life support. Marc Scribner at CEI uncovered a sneaky attempt to create DSRC technology sales via an EPA proceeding. The stalking horse DSRC boosters have chosen is the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations—specifically the EPA’s off-cycle program. EPA and NHTSA jointly manage these regulations. That program rewards manufacturers who adopt new technologies that reduce a vehicle’s emissions in ways not captured by conventional measures like highway fuel economy.

Under the proposed rules , auto makers that install V2V or V2I capabilities can receive credit for having reduced emissions. The EPA proposal doesn’t say “DSRC” but it singles out only one technology standard that would be favored in this scheme: a standard underlying DSRC . 

This proposal comes as a bit of surprise for those who have followed auto technology; we’re aware of no studies showing DSRC improves emissions. (DSRC’s primary use-case today is collision warnings to the driver.) But the EPA proposes a helpful end-around that problem: simply waiving the requirement that manufacturers provide data showing a reduction in harmful emissions. Instead of requiring emissions data, the EPA proposes a much lower bar, that auto makers show that these devices merely “have some connection to overall environmental benefits.” Unless the agency applies credits in a tech-neutral way and requires more rigor in the final rules, which is highly unlikely, this looks like a backdoor subsidy to DSRC via gaming of emission reduction regulations.

Hopefully EPA regulators will discover the ruse and drop the proposal. It was a pleasant surprise last week when a DOT spokesman committed that the agency favored a tech-neutral approach for this “talking car” band. But after 20 years,  this 75 MHz of spectrum gifted to DSRC device makers should be repurposed by the FCC for flexible-use. Fortunately, the FCC has started thinking about alternative uses for the DSRC spectrum. In 2015 Commissioners O’Rielly and Rosenworcel said the agency should consider flexible-use alternatives to this DSRC-only band.

The FCC would be wise to follow through and push even farther. Until the gifted spectrum that powers DSRC is reallocated to flexible use, interest groups will continue to pull any regulatory lever it has to subsidize or mandate adoption of talking-car technology. If DSRC is the best V2V technology available, device makers should win market share by convincing auto companies, not by convincing regulators.

The move to small cells and fixed wireless broadband means states, cities, and the FCC are changing their regulatory approaches. For decades, wireless providers have competed primarily on coverage, which meant building large cell towers all over the country, each one serving hundreds of people. That’s changing. As Commissioner Carr noted,

5G networks will look very different from today’s 4G deployments. 5G will involve the addition of hundreds of thousands of new, small-scale facilities with antennas no larger than a small backpack.

Currently, wireless companies don’t have many good options when it comes to placing these lower-power, higher-bandwidth “small cells.” They typically install small cells and 5G transmitters on public rights-of-way and on utility poles, but there may not be room on poles and attachment fees might be high.  

One thing the FCC might consider to stimulate 5G and small cell investment is to dust off its 20 year-old over-the-air-reception-device (OTARD) rules. These little-known rules protect homeowners and renters from unwarranted regulation of TV and broadband antennas placed on their property. If liberalized, the OTARD rules would open up tens of millions of other potential small cell sites–on rooftops, on balconies, and in open fields and backyards around the country. 

Background

In the early 1990s, cities and homeowner associations would sometimes prohibit, charge for, or regulate satellite dishes that homeowners or renters installed on their rooftops or balconies. Lawmakers saw a problem and wanted to jumpstart competition in television (cities had authorized cable TV monopolies for decades and cable had over 95% of the pay-TV market).

In the 1996 Telecom Act, then, Congress instructed the FCC to increase TV competition by regulating the regulators. Congress said that state, local, and HOA restrictions cannot impose restrictions that

impair a viewer’s ability to receive video programming services through devices designed for over-the-air reception of television broadcast signals, multichannel multipoint distribution service [MMDS], or direct broadcast satellite services.

With these congressional instructions, the FCC created its OTARD rules, informally known as the “pizza box rule.” Briefly stated, if your TV antenna, satellite TV receiver, or “fixed wireless” antenna is smaller than a large pizza (1 meter diameter–no cell towers in front yards), you are free to install the necessary equipment on property you control, like a yard or balcony. (There are some exceptions for safety issues and historical buildings.) The 1996 law expressly protects MMDS (now called “broadband radio service”), which includes spectrum in the 2.1 GHz, 2.5 GHz, 2.6 GHz, 28 GHz, 29 GHz, and 31 GHz bands. The Clinton FCC expanded the rules to protect, broadly, any antennas that “receive or transmit fixed wireless signals.” You can even install a mast with an antenna that extends up to 12 feet above your roofline. 

OTARD reform

The rules protect fixed wireless antennas and could see new life in the 5G world. Carriers are building small cells and fixed wireless primarily to provide faster broadband and “mobile TV” services. Millions of Americans now view their cable and Netflix content on mobile devices and carriers are starting to test mobile-focused pay-TV services. AT&T has Watch TV, T-Mobile is expected to deploy a mobile TV service soon because of its Layer3 acquisition, and reporting suggests that Verizon is approaching YouTube TV and Apple to supply TV for its 5G service. 

The FCC’s current interpretation of its OTARD rules doesn’t help 5G and small cell deployment all that much, even though the antennas are small and they transmit TV services. The actual rules don’t say this but the FCC’s interpretation is that their OTARD protections don’t protect antenna “hubs” (one-to-many transmitters like small cells).  The FCC liberalized this interpretation in its Massport proceeding and allowed  hub  one-to-many transmitters [Correction, via Connor at the FCC: the FCC liberalized to say that one-to-many transmitters are permitted, not hub antennas.] but did not extend this interpretation for homeowners’ antennas.  In short, under the current interpretation, cities and HOAs can regulate, charge for, and prohibit the installation of 5G and small cells on private property.

The FCC should consider expanding its rules to protect the installation of (low power) 5G and small cell hubs on private property. This would directly improve, per the statute, “viewers’ ability to receive video programming services” via wireless. It would have the ancillary effect of improving other wireless services. The prospect of installing small cells on private property, even temporarily, should temper the fees carriers are charged to use the public rights-of-way and poles.

In rural areas, the FCC might also consider modifying the rules to allow masts that extend beyond 12 feet above the roofline. Transmitters even a few feet taller would improve wireless backhaul and coverage to nearby homes, thus increasing rural broadband deployment and IP-based television services.

Wireless trends

OTARD reform is especially timely today because the Wheeler and Pai FCCs have freed up several bands of spectrum and fixed wireless is surging. Fixed wireless and mesh network providers using CBRS and other spectrum bands could benefit from more installation sites, particularly in rural areas. C Spire, for instance, is creating “hub homes” for fixed wireless, and Starry and Rise Broadband are expanding their service areas. CableLabs is working on upgrading cable networks for mobile and 5G backhaul and cable operators might benefit from OTARD reform and more outside infrastructure.

Modifying the OTARD rules might be controversial but modification directly gives consumers and homeowners more control over improving broadband service in their neighborhood, just as the rules improved TV competition in the past. Courts are pretty deferential when agencies change an interpretation of an existing rule. Further, as the agency said years ago:

T he Federal Communications Commission has consistently maintained that it has the ultimate responsibility to determine whether the public interest would be served by construction of any specific antenna tower.

The future of wireless services is densification–putting fiber and small cells all over downtowns and neighborhoods in order to increase broadband capacity for cutting-edge services, like smart glasses for the blind and remote-controlled passenger cars. The OTARD rules and the FCC’s authority over wireless antennas provides another tool to improve wireless coverage and TV services.

Mobile broadband is a tough business in the US. There are four national carriers–Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint–but since about 2011, mergers have been contemplated (and attempted, but blocked). Recently, the competition has gotten fiercer.  The higher data buckets and unlimited data plans have been great for consumers.

The FCC’s latest mobile competition report, citing UBS data, says that industry ARPU (basically, monthly revenue per subscriber), which had been pretty stable since 1998, declined significantly from 2013 to 2016 from about $46 to about $36. These revenue pressures seemed to fall hardest on Sprint, who in February, issued $1.5 billion of “junk bonds” to help fund its network investments. Analysts pointed out in 2016 that “Sprint has not reported full-year net profits since 2006.”  Further, mobile TV watching is becoming a bigger business. AT&T and Verizon both plan to offer a TV bundle to their wireless customers this year, and T-Mobile’s purchase of Layer3 indicates an interest in offering a mobile TV service.

It’s these trends that probably pushed T-Mobile and Sprint to announce yesterday their intention to merge. All eyes will be on the DOJ and the FCC as their competition divisions consider whether to approve the merger.

The Core Arguments

Merger opponents’ primary argument is what’s been raised several times since the 2011 AT&T-T-Mobile aborted merger: this “4 to 3” merger significantly raises the prospect of “tacit collusion.” After the merger, the story goes, the 3 remaining mobile carriers won’t work as hard to lower prices or improve services. While outright collusion on prices is illegal, they have a point that tacit collusion is more difficult for regulators to prove, to prevent, and to prosecute.

The counterargument, that T-Mobile and Sprint are already making, is that “mobile” is not a distinct market anymore–technologies and services are converging. Therefore, tacit collusion won’t be feasible because mobile broadband is increasingly competing with landline broadband providers (like Comcast and Charter), and possibly even media companies (like Netflix and Disney). Further, they claim, T-Mobile and Sprint going it alone will each struggle to deploy a capex-intensive 5G network that can compete with AT&T, Verizon, Comcast-NBCU, and the rest, but the merged company will be a formidable competitor in TV and in consumer and enterprise broadband.

Competitive Review

Any prediction about whether the deal will be approved or denied is premature. This is a horizontal merger in a highly-visible industry and it will receive an intense antitrust review. (Rachel Barkow and Peter Huber have an informative 2001 law journal article about telecom mergers at the DOJ and FCC.) The DOJ and FCC will seek years of emails and financial records from Sprint and T-Mobile executives and attempt to ascertain the “real” motivation for the merger and its likely consumer effects.

T-Mobile and Sprint will likely lean on evidence that consumers view (or soon will view) mobile broadband and TV as a substitute for landline broadband and TV. Much like phone and TV went from “local markets with one or two competitors” years ago to a “national market with several competitors,” their story seems to be, broadband is following a similar trajectory and viewing this as a 4 to 3 merger misreads industry trends.

There’s preliminary evidence that mobile broadband will put competitive pressure on conventional, landline broadband. Census surveys indicate that in 2013, 10% of Internet-using households were mobile Internet only (no landline Internet). By 2015, about 20% of households were mobile-only, and the proportion of Internet users who had landline broadband actually fell from 82% to 75%. But this is still preliminary and I haven’t seen economic evidence yet that mobile is putting pricing pressure on landline TV and broadband.

FCC Review

Antitrust review is only one step, however. The FCC transaction review process is typically longer and harder to predict. The FCC has concurrent  authority with the DOJ under the Clayton Act to review telecommunications mergers under Sections 7 and 11 of the Clayton Act but it has never used that authority. Instead, the FCC uses its spectrum transfer review authority as a hook to evaluate mergers using the Communication Act’s (vague) “public interest standard.” Unlike antitrust standards, which generally put the burden on regulators to show consumer and competitive harm, the public interest standard as currently interpreted puts the burden on merging companies to show social and competitive benefits.

Hopefully the FCC will hew to a more rigorous antitrust inquiry and reform the open-ended public interest inquiry. As Chris Koopman and I wrote for the law journal a few years ago, these FCC  “public interest” reviews are sometimes excessively long and advocates use the vague standards to force the FCC into ancillary concerns, like TV programming decisions and “net neutrality” compliance.

Part of the public interest inquiry is a complex “spectrum screen” analysis. Basically, transacting companies can’t have too much “good” spectrum in a single regional market. I doubt the spectrum screen analysis would be dispositive (much of the analysis in the past seemed pretty ad hoc), but I do wonder if it will be an issue since this was a major issue raised in the AT&T-T-Mobile attempted merger.

In any case, that’s where I see the core issues, though we’ll learn much more as the merger reviews commence.

Expanding rural broadband has generated significant interest in recent years. However, the current subsidy programs are often mismanaged and impose little accountability. It’s not clear what effect rural broadband subsidies have had, despite the amount of money spent on it. As economist Scott Wallsten has pointed out, the US government has spent around $100 billion on rural telecommunications and broadband since 1995 “without evidence that it has improved adoption.”

So I was pleased to hear a few months ago that the Montana Public Service Commission was making an inquiry into how to improve rural broadband subsidy programs. Montana looms large in rural broadband discussions because Montana telecommunications providers face some of the most challenging terrain the US–mountainous, vast, and lightly-populated. (In fact, “no bars on your phone” in rural Montana is a major plot element in the popular videogame Far Cry 5. HT Rob Jackson.)

I submitted comments in the Montana PSC proceeding and received an invitation to testify at a hearing on the subject. So last week I flew to Helena to discuss rural broadband programs with the PSC and panelists.  I emphasized three points.

• Federal broadband subsidy programs are facing higher costs and fewer beneficiaries.

Using FCC data, I calculated that since 1998, USF high-cost subsidies to Montana telecom companies have risen by about 40% while the number of rural customers served by those companies have decreased by over 50%. I suspect these trends are common nationally, and that USF subsidies are increasing while fewer people are benefiting.

• Wireless broadband is the future, especially in rural areas.

“Fiber everywhere” is not a wise use of taxpayer funds and exurban and rural households are increasingly relying on wireless–from satellite, WISPs, and mobile. In 2016, the CDC reported that more households had wireless phone than landline phone service. You’re starting to see “cord cutting” pick up for broadband as well. Census surveys indicate that in 2013, 10% of Internet-using households were mobile Internet only (no landline Internet). By 2015, that percentage had doubled, and about 20% of households were mobile-only. The percentage is likely even higher today now that unlimited data plans are common. Someday soon the FCC will have to conclude that mobile broadband is a substitute for fixed broadband, and subsidy programs should reflect that.

• Consumer-focused “tech vouchers” would be a huge improvement over current broadband programs.

Current programs subsidize the construction of networks even where there’s no demand. The main reason the vast majority of non-Internet users don’t subscribe to broadband is that they are uninterested in subscribing, according to surveys from the NTIA (55% are uninterested), Pew (70% are uninterested), and FCC and Connected Nation experts (63% are uninterested). With rising costs and diminishing returns to rural fiber construction, the FCC needs to reevaluate USF and make subsidies more consumer-focused. The UK for a couple years has pursued another model for rural broadband: consumer broadband vouchers. Since most people who don’t subscribe to broadband don’t want it, vouchers protect taxpayers from unnecessary expense and paying for gold-plated services.

For years, economists and the GAO have criticized the structure, complexity, and inefficiency of the USF programs, and particularly the rural program. The FCC is constantly changing the programs because of real and perceived deficiencies, but this has made the USF unwieldy. Montana providers participate in at least seven different rural USF programs alone (that doesn’t include the other USF programs and subprograms or other federal help, like RUS grants).

Unfortunately, most analysis and reporting on US broadband programs can be summed up as “don’t touch the existing programs–just send more money.” (There are some exceptions and scrutiny of the programs, like Tony Romm’s 2015 Politico investigation into the mismanagement of stimulus-funded Ag Department broadband projects.)

“Journalism as advocacy” is unfortunately the norm when it comes to broadband policy. Take, for instance, this article about the digital divide that omits mention of the $100 billion spent in rural areas alone, only to conclude that “small [broadband] companies and cooperatives are going it more or less alone, without much help yet from the federal government.”

(That story and another digital divide story had other problems, namely, a reliance on an academic study using faulty data purchased from a partisan campaign firm. FiveThirtyEight deserves credit for acknowledging the data’s flaws but that should have alerted the editors on the need for still more fact-checking.) 

States can’t rewrite federal statutes and regulations but it’s to the Montana PSC’s great credit that they sensed that all is not well. Current trends will only put more stress on the programs. Hopefully other state PUCs will see that the current programs do a disservice for universal service objectives and consumers.

Years ago it looked like the Obama FCC would make broadband deployment, especially wireless service and spectrum reform, a top priority. They accomplished plenty–including two of the largest spectrum auctions to date–but, under tremendous political and special interest pressure, FCC leadership diverted significant agency resources into regulatory battles that had very little upside, like regulating TV apps and unprecedented regulation of Internet services.

Fortunately, the Trump FCC so far has made broadband deployment the agency’s top priority, which Chairman Pai signaled last year with the creation of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee. As part of those deployment efforts, Commissioner Carr has led an effort to streamline some legacy regulatory obstacles, like historic preservation and environmental reviews and the FCC will vote this week on an order to expedite wireless infrastructure construction.

According to the FCC, somewhere around 96% of the US population has LTE coverage from three or more wireless operators, like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. The operators’ job isn’t done in rural areas, but much of the future investment into broadband networks will be to “densify” their existing coverage maps with “small cells” in order to provide wireless customers more bandwidth.

Since telecom companies build infrastructure, many current projects require review under the federal National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. However, unlike for the 100-foot cellphone towers in the past, the environmental checklists currently required for small cells are largely perfunctory since small cells typically use existing infrastructure, like utility poles. For Sprint’s tens of thousands of small cell site applications, for instance, the proposed order says “every single review resulted in a finding of no significant impact.”

The order under consideration will bring some structure to regulatory timelines and procedures. This should save carriers on unnecessary regulatory overhead and, more importantly, save time.

The order comes at a crucial time, which is why the prior FCC’s net neutrality distractions are so regrettable. Mobile broadband has huge demands and inadequate infrastructure and spectrum. According to studies, millions of Americans are going “mobile only,” and bypassing landline Internet service. Census Bureau surveys estimated that in 2015, about 20% of Internet-using households were mobile-only. (HT to Michael Horney.) That number is likely even higher today.

The construction of higher-capacity and 5G wireless, combined with repeal of the 2015 Internet regulations, will give consumers more options and better prices for Internet services, and will support new mobile applications like remote-control of driverless cars and AR “smart glasses” for blind people. Hopefully, after this order, the agency will continue with spectrum liberalization and other reforms that will expedite broadband projects.

In the waning days of the Obama administration, the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) proposed to mandate a government-designed “talking cars” technology–so-called DSRC devices–on all new cars. Fortunately, in part because of opposition from free-market advocates, the Trump administration paused the proposed mandate. The FCC had set aside spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band for DSRC technologies in 1999 but it’s been largely unused since then and these new developments raise the question: What to do with that 75 MHz of fairly “clean” spectrum? Hopefully the FCC will take the opportunity to liberalize the use of the DSRC band so it can be put to better uses.

Background

Since the mid-1990s, the USDOT and auto device suppliers have needed the FCC’s assistance–via free spectrum–to jumpstart the USDOT’s vehicle-to-vehicle technology plans. The DSRC disappointment provides an illustration of what the FCC (and other agencies) should not do. DSRC was one of the FCC’s last major “beauty contests,” which is where the agency dispenses valuable spectrum for free on the condition it be used for certain, narrow uses–in this case, only USDOT-approved wireless systems for transportation. The grand plans for DSRC haven’t lived up to its expectations (USDOT officials in 2004 were predicting commercialization as early as 2005) and the device mandate in 2016–now paused–was a Hail Mary attempt to compel widespread adoption of the technology.

Last year, I submitted public interest comments to the USDOT opposing the proposed DSRC mandate as premature, anticompetitive, and unsafe (researchers found, for instance, that “the system will be able to reliably predict collisions only about 35% of the time”). I noted that, a fter nearly 20 years of work on DSRC, the USDOT and their hand-selected vendors had made little progress and were being leapfrogged by competing systems, like automatic emergency brakes,  to say nothing of self-driving cars. The FCC has noticed the fallow DSRC spectrum and Commissioners O’Rielly and Rosenworcel proposed in 2015 to allow other, non-DSRC wireless technologies, like WiFi, into the band.

The FCC’s Role

These DSRC devices use spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band. The FCC set aside  radio spectrum in the band for DSRC applications in 1999 based on a scant 19 comments and reply comments from outside parties. 

Despite the typical flowery language in the 1999 Order, FCC commissioners and Wireless Bureau staff must have had an inkling this was not a good idea. After decades of beauty contests, it was clear the spectrum set-asides were inefficient and anticonsumer, and in 1993 Congress gave the FCC authority to auction spectrum to the highest bidder. The FCC also moved towards “flexible-use” licenses in the 1990s, thus replacing top-down technology choices with market-driven ones. The DSRC set-aside broke from those practices, likely because DSRC in 1999 had powerful backers that the FCC simply couldn’t ignore: the USDOT, device vendors, automakers, and some members of Congress.

The FCC then codified the first DSRC standards in 2003. However, innovation at the speed of government, it turns out, isn’t very speedy at all. The fast-moving connected car industry simply moved ahead without waiting for DSRC technology to catch up.  (Government-selected vendors making devices according to 15-year old government-prescribed technical standards on spectrum allocated by the government in 1999 in a fast-moving technology sector. What could go wrong?)

A Second Chance

So if the DSRC plans didn’t pan out, what should be done with that spectrum? Hopefully the FCC will liberalize the band and, possibly, combine it with the adjacent bands.

The gold standard for maximizing the use of spectrum is flexible-use, licensed spectrum, so the best option is probably liberalizing the DSRC spectrum, combining it with the adjacent higher band (5.925 GHz to 6.425 GHz) and auctioning it. In November 2017, the FCC asked about freeing this latter band for flexible, licensed use.  

The other (probably more popular) option is liberalizing the DSRC band and making it available for free, that is, unlicensed use. Giving away spectrum for free often leads to misallocation but this option is better than keeping it dedicated for DSRC technology. Unlicensed is for flexible uses and allows for many consumer technologies like WiFi, Bluetooth, and unlicensed LTE devices.

Further, because of global technical standards, unlicensed devices in the DSRC band make far more sense, it seems to me, in 5.9 GHz than in the CBRS band* (3.6 GHz), which many countries are using for licensed services like LTE. The FCC is currently trying to simplify the rules in the CBRS band to encourage investment in licensed services, and perhaps that’s a compromise the FCC will reach with those who want more unlicensed spectrum: make 3.6 GHz more accommodating for licensed, flexible uses but in return open the DSRC band to unlicensed devices.

Either way, the FCC has an opportunity to liberalize the use of the DSRC band. Grand plans for DSRC didn’t work out and hopefully the FCC can repurpose that spectrum for flexible uses, either licensed or unlicensed.

*Technically, the GAA devices in the CBRS band are non-exclusive licenses, but the rules intentionally resemble an unlicensed framework.

There was a bold, bizarre proposal published by Axios yesterday that includes leaked documents by a “senior National Security Council official” for accelerating 5G deployment in the US. “5G” refers to the latest generation of wireless technologies, whose evolving specifications are being standardized by global telecommunications companies as we speak. The proposal highlights some reasonable concerns–the need for secure networks, the deleterious slowness in getting wireless infrastructure permits from thousands of municipalities and counties–but recommends an unreasonable solution–a government-operated, nationwide wireless network.

The proposal to nationalize some 5G equipment and network components needs to be nipped in the bud. It relies on the dated notion that centralized government management outperforms “wasteful competition.” It’s infeasible and would severely damage the US telecom and Internet sector, one of the brightest spots in the US economy. The plan will likely go nowhere but the fact it’s being circulated by administration officials is alarming.

First, a little context. In 1927, the US nationalized all radiofrequency spectrum, and for decades the government rations out dribbles of spectrum for commercial use (though much has improved since liberalization in the 1990s). To this day all spectrum is nationalized and wireless companies operate at sufferance. What this new document proposes is to make a poor situation worse.

In particular, the presentation proposes to re-nationalize 500 MHz of spectrum (the 3.7 GHz to 4.2 GHz band, which contains mostly satellite and government incumbents) and build wireless equipment and infrastructure across the country to transmit on this band. The federal government would act as a wholesaler to the commercial networks (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc.), who would sell retail wireless plans to consumers and businesses.

The justification for nationalizing a portion of 5G networks has a national security component and an economic component: prevent Chinese spying and beat China in the “5G race.”

The announced goals are simultaneously broad and narrow, and at severe tension.

The plan is broad in that it contemplates nationalizing part of the 5G equipment and network. However, it’s narrow in that it would nationalize only a portion of the 5G network (3.7 GHz to 4.2 GHz) and not other portions (like 600 MHz and 28 GHz). This undermines the national security purpose (assuming it’s even feasible to protect the nationalized portion) since 5G networks interconnect. It’d be like having government checkpoints on Interstate 95 but leaving all other interstates checkpoint-free.

Further, the document author misunderstands the evolutionary nature of 5G networks. 5G for awhile will be an overlay on the existing 4G LTE network, not a brand-new parallel network, as the NSC document assumes. 5G equipment will be installed on 4G LTE infrastructure in neighborhoods where capacity is strained. As Sherif Hanna, director of the 5G team at Qualcomm, noted on Twitter, in fact, “the first version of the 5G [standard]…by definition requires an existing 4G radio and core network.”

https://twitter.com/sherifhanna/status/957891843533946880

The most implausible idea in the document is a nationwide 5G network could be deployed in the next few years. Environmental and historic preservation review in a single city can take longer than that. (AT&T has battled NIMBYs and local government in San Francisco for a decade, for instance, to install a few hundred utility boxes on the public right-of-way.) The federal government deploying and maintaining hundreds of thousands 5G installations in two years from scratch is a pipe dream. And how to pay for it? The “Financing” section in the document says nothing about how the federal government will find tens of billions of dollars for nationwide deployment of a government 5G network.

The plan to nationalize a portion of 5G wireless networks and deploy nationwide is unwise and unrealistic. It would permanently damage the US broadband industry, it would antagonize city and state officials, it would raise serious privacy and First Amendment concerns, and it would require billions of new tax dollars to deploy. The released plan would also fail to ensure the network security it purports to protect. US telecom companies are lining up to pay the government for spectrum and to invest private dollars to build world-class 5G networks. If the federal government wants to accelerate 5G deployment, it should sell more spectrum and redirect existing government funding towards roadside infrastructure. Network security is a difficult problem but nationalizing networks is overkill.

Already, four out of five [update: all five] FCC commissioners have come out strongly against this plan. Someone reading the NSC proposal would get the impression that the US is sitting still while China is racing ahead on 5G. The US has unique challenges but wireless broadband deployment is probably the FCC’s highest priority. The Commission is aware of the permitting problems and formed the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee in part for that very purpose (I’m a member). The agency, in cooperation with the Department of Commerce, is also busy looking for more spectrum to release for 5G.

Recode is reporting that White House officials are already distancing the White House from the proposal. Hopefully they will publicly reject the plan soon.

Internet regulation advocates are trying to turn a recent FCC Notice of Inquiry about the state of US telecommunications services into a controversy. Twelve US Senators have accused the FCC of wanting to “redefin[e] broadband” in order to “abandon further efforts to connect Americans.”

Considering Chairman Pai and the Commission are already considering actions to accelerate the deployment of broadband, with new proceedings and the formation of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee, the allegation that the current NOI is an excuse for inaction is perplexing.

The true “controversy” is much more mundane–reasonable people disagree about what congressional neologisms like “advanced telecommunications capability” mean. The FCC must interpret and apply the indeterminate language of Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, which requires the FCC about whether to determine “whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion.” If the answer is negative, the agency must “take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market.” The inquiry is reported in an annual “Broadband Progress Report.” Much of the “scandal” of this proceeding is confusion about what “broadband” means.

What is broadband?

First: what qualifies as “broadband” download speed? It depends.

The OECD says anything above 256 kbps.

ITU standards set it at above 1.5 Mbps (or is 2.0 Mbps?).

In the US, broadband is generally defined as a higher speed. The USDA’s Rural Utilities Service defines it as 4.0 Mbps.

The FCC’s 2015 Broadband Progress Report found, as Obama FCC officials put it, that “the FCC’s definition of broadband” is now 25 Mbps. This is why advocates insist “broadband access” includes only wireline services above 25 Mbps.

But in the same month, the Obama FCC determined in the Open Internet Order that anything above dialup speed–56 kbps–is “broadband Internet access service.”

So, according to regulation advocates, 1.5 Mbps DSL service isn’t “broadband access” service but it is “broadband Internet access service.” Likewise a 30 Mbps 4G LTE connection isn’t a “broadband access” service but it is “broadband Internet access service.”

In other words, the word games about “broadband” are not coming from the Trump FCC. There is no consistency for what “broadband” means because prior FCCs kept changing the definition, and even use the term differently in different proceedings. As the Obama FCC said in 2009, “In previous reports to Congress, the Commission used the terms ‘broadband,’ ‘advanced telecommunications capability,’ and ‘advanced services’ interchangeably.”

Instead, what is going on is that the Trump FCC is trying to apply Section 706 to the current broadband market. The main questions are, what is advanced telecommunications capability, and is it “being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion”?

Is mobile broadband an “advanced telecommunications capability”?

Previous FCCs declined to adopt a speed benchmark for when wireless service satisfies the “advanced telecommunications capability” definition. The so-called controversy is because the latest NOI revisits this omission in light of consumer trends. The NOI straightforwardly asks whether mobile broadband above 10 Mbps satisfies the statutory definition of “advanced telecommunications capability.”

For that, the FCC must consult the statute. Such a capability, the statute says, is technology-neutral (i.e. includes wireless and “fixed” connections) and “enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications.”

Historically, since the statute doesn’t provide much precision, the FCC has examined subscription rates of various broadband speeds and services. From 2010 to 2015, the Obama FCCs defined advanced telecommunications capability as a fixed connection of 4 Mbps. In 2015, as mentioned, that benchmark was raised 25 Mbps.

Regulation advocates fear that if the FCC looks at subscription rates, the agency might find that mobile broadband above 10 Mbps is an advanced telecommunications capability. This finding, they feel, would undermine the argument that the US broadband market needs intense regulation. According to recent Pew surveys, 12% of adults–about 28 million people–are “wireless only” and don’t have a wireline subscription. Those numbers certainly raise the possibility that mobile broadband is an advanced telecommunications capability.

Let’s look at the three fixed broadband technologies that “pass” the vast majority of households–cable modem, DSL, and satellite–and narrow the data to connections 10 Mbps or above.*

Home broadband connections (10 Mbps+) Cable modem – 54.4 million DSL – 11.8 million Satellite – 1.4 million

It’s hard to know for sure since Pew measures adult individuals and the FCC measures households, but it’s possible more people have 4G LTE as home broadband (about 28 million adults and their families) than have 10 Mbps+ DSL as home broadband (11.8 million households).

Subscription rates aren’t the end of the inquiry, but the fact that millions of households are going mobile-only rather than DSL or cable modem is suggestive evidence that mobile broadband offers an advanced telecommunications capability. (Considering T-Mobile is now providing 50 GB of data per line per month, mobile-only household growth will likely accelerate.)

Are high-speed services “being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion”?

The second inquiry is whether these advanced telecommunications capabilities “are being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion.” Again, the statute doesn’t give much guidance but consumer adoption of high-speed wireline and wireless broadband has been impressive.

So few people had 25 Mbps for so long that the FCC didn’t record it in its Internet Access Services reports until 2011. At the end of 2011, 6.3 million households subscribed to 25 Mbps. Less than five years later, in June 2016, over 56 million households subscribed. In the last year alone, fixed providers extended 25 Mbps or greater speeds to 21 million households.

The FCC is not completely without guidance on this question. As part of the 2008 Broadband Data Services Improvement Act, Congress instructed the FCC to use international comparisons in its Section 706 Report. International comparisons also suggest that the US is deploying advanced telecommunications capability in a timely manner. For instance, according to the OECD the US has 23.4 fiber and cable modem connections per 100 inhabitants, which far exceeds the OECD average, 16.2 per 100 inhabitants.**

Anyways, the sky is not falling because the FCC is asking about mobile broadband subscription rates. More can be done to accelerate broadband–particularly if the government frees up more spectrum and local governments improve their permitting processes–but the Section 706 inquiry offers little that is controversial or new.

*Fiber and fixed wireless connections, 9.6 million and 0.3 million subscribers, respectively, are also noteworthy but these 10 Mbps+ technologies only cover certain areas of the country.

**America’s high rank in the OECD is similar if DSL is included, but the quality of DSL varies widely and often doesn’t provide 10 Mbps or 25 Mbps speeds.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai today announced plans to expand the role of economic analysis at the FCC in a speech at the Hudson Institute. This is an eminently sensible idea that other regulatory agencies (both independent and executive branch) could learn from.

Pai first made the case that when the FCC listened to its economists in the past, it unlocked billions of dollars of value for consumers. The most prominent example was the switch from hearings to auctions in order to allocate spectrum licenses. He perceptively noted that the biggest effect of auctions was the massive improvement in consumer welfare, not just the more than $100 billion raised for the Treasury. Other examples of the FCC using the best ideas of its economists include:

• Use of reverse auctions to allocate universal service funds to reduce costs.
• Incentive auctions that reward broadcasters for transferring licenses to other uses – an idea initially proposed in a 2002 working paper by Evan Kwerel and John Williams at the FCC.
• The move from rate of return to price cap regulation for long distance carriers.

More recently, Pai argued, the FCC has failed to use economics effectively. He identified four key problems:

1. Economics is not systematically employed in policy decisions and often employed late in the process. The FCC has no guiding principles for conduct and use of economic analysis.
2. Economists work in silos. They are divided up among bureaus. Economists should be able to work together on a wide variety of issues, as they do in the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Economics, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s economic analysis unit, and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis.
3. Benefit-cost analysis is not conducted well or often, and the FCC does not take Regulatory Flexibility Act analysis (which assesses effects of regulations on small entities) seriously. The FCC should use Office of Management and Budget guidance as its guide to doing good analysis, but OMB’s 2016 draft report on the benefits and costs of federal regulations shows that the FCC has estimated neither benefits nor costs of any of its major regulations issued in the past 10 years. Yet executive orders from multiple administrations demonstrate that “Serious cost-benefit analysis is a bipartisan tradition.”
4. Poor use of data. The FCC probably collects a lot of data that’s unnecessary, at a paperwork cost of $800 million per year, not including opportunity costs of the private sector. But even useful data are not utilized well. For example, a few years ago the FCC stopped trying to determine whether the wireless market is effectively competitive even though it collects lots of data on the wireless market.

To remedy these problems, Pai announced an initiative to establish an Office of Economics and Data that would house the FCC’s economists and data analysts. An internal working group will be established to collect input within the FCC and from the public. He hopes to have the new office up and running by the end of the year. The purpose of this change is to give economists early input into the rulemaking process, better manage the FCC’s data resources, and conduct strategic research to help find solutions to “the next set of difficult issues.”

Can this initiative significantly improve the quality and use of economic analysis at the FCC?

There’s evidence that independent regulatory agencies are capable of making some decent improvements in their economic analysis when they are sufficiently motivated to do so. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s authorizing statue contains language that requires benefit-cost analysis of regulations when the commission seeks to determine whether they are in the public interest. Between 2005 and 2011, the SEC lost several major court cases due to inadequate economic analysis.

In 2012, the commission’s general counsel and chief economist issued new economic analysis guidance that pledged to assess regulations according to the principal criteria identified in executive orders, guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, and independent research. In a recent study, I found that the economic analysis accompanying a sample of major SEC regulations issued after this guidance was measurably better than the analysis accompanying regulations issued prior to the new guidance. The SEC improved on all five aspects of economic analysis it identified as critical: assessment of the need for the regulation, assessment of the baseline outcomes that will likely occur in the absence of new regulation, identification of alternatives, and assessment of the benefits and costs of alternatives.

Unlike the SEC, the FCC faces no statutory benefit-cost analysis requirement for its regulations. Unlike the executive branch agencies, the FCC is under no executive order requiring economic analysis of regulations. Unlike the Federal Trade Commission in the early 1980s, the FCC faces little congressional pressure for abolition.

But Congress is considering legislation that would require all regulatory agencies to conduct economic analysis of major regulations and subject that analysis to limited judicial review. Proponents of executive branch regulatory review have always contended that the president has legal authority to extend the executive orders on regulatory impact analysis to cover independent agencies, and perhaps President Trump is audacious enough to try this. Thus, it appears Chairman Pai is trying to get the FCC out ahead of the curve.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the White House is crafting a plan for $1 trillion in infrastructure investment. I was intrigued to learn that President Trump “inquired about the possibility of auctioning the broadcast spectrum to wireless carriers” to help fund the programs. Spectrum sales are the rare win-win-win: they stimulate infrastructure investment (cell towers, fiber networks, devices), provide new wireless services and lower prices to consumers, and generate billions in revenue for the federal government.

Broadcast TV spectrum is good place to look for revenue but the White House should also look at federal agencies, who possess about ten times what broadcasters hold.

Large portions of spectrum are underused or misallocated because of decades of command-and-control policies. Auctioning spectrum for flexible uses, on the other hand, is a free-market policy that is often lucrative for the federal government. Since 1993, when Congress authorized spectrum auctions, wireless carriers and tech companies have spent somewhere around $120 billion for about 430 MHz of flexible-use spectrum, and the lion’s share of revenue was deposited in the US Treasury.

A few weeks ago, the FCC completed the $19 billion sale of broadcast TV spectrum, the so-called incentive auction. Despite underwhelming many telecom experts, this was the third largest US spectrum auction ever in terms of revenue and will transfer a respectable 70 MHz from restricted (broadcast TV) use to flexible use.

The remaining broadcast TV spectrum that President Trump is interested in totals about 210 MHz. But even more spectrum is under the President’s nose.

As Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology pointed out in 2012, federal agencies possess around 2,000 MHz of “beachfront” (sub-3.7 GHz) spectrum. I charted various spectrum uses in a December 2016 Mercatus policy brief.

This government spectrum is very valuable if portions can be cleared of federal users. Federal spectrum was part of the frequencies the FCC auctioned in 2006 and 2015, and the slivers of federal spectrum (around 70 MHz of the federal total) sold for around $27 billion combined.

The Department of Commerce has been analyzing which federal spectrum bands could be used commercially and the Mobile Now Act, a pending bill in Congress, proposes more sales of federal spectrum. These policies have moved slowly (and the vague language about unlicensed spectrum in the Mobile Now bill has problems) but the Trump administration has a chance to expedite spectrum reallocation processes and sell more federal spectrum to commercial users.

The proposed Mobile Now Act signals that spectrum policy is being prioritized by Congress and there’s some useful reforms in the bill. However, the bill encourages unlicensed spectrum allocations in ways that I believe will create major problems down the road.

Congress and the FCC need to proceed much more carefully before allocating more unlicensed spectrum. The FCC’s 2008 decision, for instance, to allow unlicensed devices in the “TV white spaces” has been disappointing. As some economists recently noted, “[s]imply stated, the FCC’s TV white space policy to date has been a flop.” Unlicensed spectrum policy is also generating costly fights (see WiFi v. LTE-U, Bluetooth v. TLPS, LightSquared v. GPS) as device makers and carriers lobby about who gains regulatory protection and how to divide this valuable resource that the FCC parcels out for free.

The unlicensed spectrum provisions in the Mobile Now Act may force the FCC to referee innumerable fights over who has access to unlicensed spectrum. Section 18 of the Mobile Now bill encourages unlicensed spectrum. It says the FCC must

make available on an unlicensed basis radio frequency bands sufficient to meet demand for unlicensed wireless broadband operations if doing so is…reasonable…and…in the public interest.

Note that we have language about supply and demand here. But unlicensed spectrum is free to all users using an approved device (that is, nearly everyone in the US). Quantity demanded will always outstrip quantity supplied when a valuable asset (like spectrum or real estate) is handed out when price = 0. By removing a valuable asset from the price system, large allocation distortions are likely.

Any policy originating from Congress or the FCC to satisfy “demand” for unlicensed spectrum biases the agency towards parceling out an excessive amount of unlicensed spectrum. 

The problems from unlicensed spectrum allocation could be mitigated if the FCC decided, as part of a “public interest” conclusion, to estimate the opportunity cost of any unlicensed spectrum allocated.  That way, the government will have a rough idea of the market value of unlicensed spectrum being given away. There have been several auctions and there is an active secondary market for spectrum so estimates are achievable, and the UK has required the calculation of the opportunity cost of spectrum for over a decade.

With these estimates, it will be more difficult but still possible for the FCC to defend giving away spectrum for free. Economist Coleman Bazelon, for instance, estimates that the incremental value of a nationwide megahertz of licensed spectrum is more than 10x the equivalent unlicensed spectrum allocation. Significantly, unlike licensed spectrum, allocations of unlicensed bands are largely irreversible.

People can quibble with the estimates but it is unclear that unlicensed use is the best use of additional spectrum. In any case, hopefully the FCC will attempt to bring some economic rigor to public interest determinations.

Is the incentive auction a disappointment? For consumers, this auction is not a disappointment. At least–not yet.

Scott Wallsten at the Technology Policy Institute has a good rundown. My thoughts below:

By my count, this was the eighth major auction of commercial, flexible-use spectrum since auctions were authorized in 1993. On the most important question–how much spectrum was repurposed from restricted uses to flexible, licensed uses?–this auction stacks up pretty well.

At 70 MHz, this was the third largest auction in terms of total spectrum repurposed, trailing the mid-1990s PCS auction (120 MHz) and 2006 AWS-1 auction (90 MHz).

On the next most important question–how quickly will new services be deployed?–the verdict is still out. Historically, repurposing spectrum like this typically takes six to twelve years. Depending on how you classify it, this proceeding commenced in 2010 (when the FCC proposed the incentive auction) or 2012 (when Congress authorized the auction). With the auction over, broadcasters have over three years to clear out of the spectrum but some believe it will take longer. Right now, it looks like the process will take seven to eleven years total–not great but pretty typical. 

Some people are disappointed, however, with this auction, particularly some in the broadcasting industry and in the FCC or Congress, who expected higher auction revenues.

High revenue gets nice headlines but is far less important than the amount of spectrum repurposed. It’s an underreported story but close to 290 MHz of spectrum, nearly 45% of all liberalized, licensed spectrum, was de-zoned by the FCC, not auctioned. De-zoning spectrum generates zero auction revenue for the government but consumers see substantial benefits from this de-zoning, even if the government does not directly benefit. I recently wrote a policy brief about the benefits of de-zoning spectrum.

In any case, in terms of revenue, this auction was not a failure. At around $17 billion, it’s third out of eight, trailing the 2008 700 MHz band auction (about $21 billion in 2015 dollars) and the massive haul from the 2015 AWS-3 auction (about $42 billion).

At close, broadcasters will receive $10 billion for the 70 MHz of available licensed spectrum. Some broadcasters consider it a failure, just as a home seller is disappointed when her home sells below list price. The broadcasters initially requested $86 billion for 100 MHz of available spectrum. When the carriers’ bids didn’t match that price, some broadcasters pulled out and the remaining broadcasters lowered their price.

Were there better ways of repurposing broadcast spectrum? Broadcasters have a point that the complexity of the auction might have reduced buyer and seller participation (which means lower bids and fewer deals). As Wallsten notes, an overlay auction (like AWS-1) or simply de-zoning the spectrum might have been better (faster) alternatives. But it goes too far deem this auction a failure (at least until we know how long the broadcaster repack takes).

Those of us with deep reservations about the push for ever more unlicensed spectrum are having many of our fears realized with the new resistance to novel technologies using unlicensed spectrum. By law unlicensed spectrum users have no rights to their spectrum; unlicensed spectrum is a managed commons. In practice, however, existing users frequently act as if they own their spectrum and they can exclude others. By entertaining these complaints, the FCC simply encourages NIMBYism in unlicensed spectrum.

The general idea behind unlicensed spectrum is that by providing a free spectrum commons to any device maker who complies with certain simple rules (namely, Part 15’s low power operation requirement), device makers will develop wireless services that would never have developed if the device makers had to shell out millions for licensed spectrum. For decades, unlicensed spectrum has stimulated development and sale of millions of consumer devices, including cordless phones, Bluetooth devices, wifi access points, RC cars, and microwave ovens.

Now, however, many device makers are getting nervous about new entrants. For instance, Globalstar is developing a technology, TLPS, based on wifi standards that will use some unlicensed spectrum at 2.4 GHz and mobile carriers would like to market an unlicensed spectrum technology, LTE-U, based on 4G LTE standards that will use spectrum at 5 GHz.

This resistance from various groups and spectrum incumbents, who fear interference in “their” spectrum if these new technologies catch on, was foreseeable, which makes these intractable conflicts even more regrettable. As Prof. Tom Hazlett wrote in a 2001 essay, long before today’s conflicts, when it comes to unlicensed devices, “economic success spells its own demise.” Hazlett noted, “Where an unlicensed firm successfully innovates, open access guarantees imitation. This not only results in competition…but may degrade wireless emissions — perhaps severely.”

On the other hand, the many technical filings about potential interference to existing unlicensed devices are red herrings. Prospective device makers in these unlicensed bands have no duty to protect existing users. Part 15 rules say that unlicensed users like wifi and Bluetooth “shall not be deemed to have any vested or recognizable right to continued use of any given frequency by virtue of prior registration or certification of equipment” and that “interference must be accepted.” These rules, however, put the FCC in a self-created double bind: the agency provides no interference protection to existing users but its open access policy makes interference conflicts likely.

There is a concerted effort, then, by some wireless industry associations, tech journalists, and tech-focused nonprofits to ignore the Part 15 rules and suggest that open access no longer applies. In particular, there are suggestions that LTE-U must or should comply with wifi-like listen-before-talk mechanisms before using the unlicensed commons. Chris Lewis at Public Knowledge insinuated as much in a blog post on the issue. He states the correct but legally irrelevant fact that early versions of LTE-U don’t use listen-before-talk protocols and then adds a confusing non sequitur, “This is in violation of basic Wi-Fi standards.”

The notion that LTE-U or any other new technology must employ the wifi industry’s preference, listen-before-talk, is wrong. There are tens of millions of Part 15 devices that don’t use listen-before-talk, including cordless phones, garage door openers, Bluetooth devices, and RC toys. There are different sharing etiquettes and the FCC has generally been hands-off regarding what etiquette device makers should use since, first, the strict Part 15 power limits mitigate most problems and second, interference is typically reciprocal and parties have an incentive to coordinate.

Interestingly, the FCC has required some unlicensed devices to employ listen-before-talk protocols in the unlicensed PCS band. Never heard of it? The band is a wireless graveyard. Aside from a few cordless telephones, it’s had very little use, in part because the FCC required a complex listen-before-talk etiquette that raises the cost of producing equipment. In light of this failed experiment, the FCC probably has little appetite (or aptitude) for predicting via technology mandates which sharing etiquette will most benefit consumers.

Further, unlicensed spectrum incumbents show a selective sensitivity to interference considering their unlicensed devices face interference daily. It’s impossible to approximate the severity and regularity of everyday interference but focusing on potential interference from new services like LTE-U or TLPS, which use spectrum sharing etiquettes, and ignoring the effects of, say, poorly configured or legacy wifi access points or microwave ovens in the 2.4 GHz band is akin to complaining about hearing your next-door neighbor’s TV volume when there’s a rock concert playing in your front yard. Microwave ovens are powerful emitters, typically around 400 to 800 watts compared to a 1-watt wifi device. While microwave ovens are built to shield most emissions from escaping, none are perfect and they are a frequent source of wireless interference in households and offices around the country. Relatedly, in apartments, condos, or dormitories with unmanaged wifi systems, interference occurs regularly.

The FCC sends very mixed signals regarding unlicensed policy. It formally provides no interference protection to unlicensed users but frequently solicits comment about possible harms to these existing users. No wonder, then, that some Wall Street investors have strenuously opposed Globalstar’s multi-year attempt to get approval for its TLPS technology to provide wifi-like Internet access. Why would a hedge fund take an interest in the intricacies of Part 15 rules? Recent tech reporting is suggestive.

Bloomberg BNA reported that one intervenor who has filed comments against Globalstar’s TLPS application “runs a hedge fund [and has] said he is short-selling Globalstar’s stock, so he has been very active in the Globalstar TLPS FCC proceeding.” The New York Times similarly reports on another frequent filer in the TLPS proceeding, “a little-known activist investor [who] has declared war on the multibillion-dollar satellite communications company Globalstar, contending that it is worthless.” Existing device makers likewise may see a competitive threat from new devices that provide similar services, as Hazlett notes, and pile on in these proceedings.

Singling out a company with important business before a regulatory agency is not unheard of but the FCC only encourages financial gamesmanship by requesting that parties weigh in on interference potential for users that formally aren’t entitled to interference protection. Is this how the spectrum commons dies?

The most effective tactic to use when the FCC is likely to do something you dislike is to induce regulatory delays. The public interest groups can see much of this and their responses have been relatively muted relative to the commercial interests. I suspect many are deeply uncomfortable with what is occurring because it undermines the idea of a commons and the intent of the Part 15 rules. Nevertheless, they favor the status quo because wifi works pretty well and consumers have reliance interests. Knowing that the Part 15 rules don’t help them, they typically resort to asking for more studies about interference potential. It sounds like an innocuous request but anyone following telecom policy knows that “more study” from the FCC is the kiss of death because it simply gives time for opponents to agitate for reinforcements (like powerful members of Congress) and to scare off investment.

Congress, by the way, foresaw this risk–pressure groups compelling the FCC to kill entrants with delay–and in 1983 added the little-known Section 7 of the Communications Act, which requires the FCC to approve new technologies within a year. By requesting parties weigh in on interference potential and delaying indefinitely Part 15 approvals for TLPS and LTE-U (assuming they show they comply with Part 15) the FCC violates the spirit of the law. The agency has a statutory duty to companies with new technologies to make a decision quickly, but these lengthy unlicensed proceedings send a chilling message to the tech industry (so much so the IEEE asked then-Chairman Genachowski for Section 7 guidance in 2011).

The FCC knows spectrum NIMBYism is a big, developing problem. The unlicensed incumbents are agitating more and more as new technologies encroach on “their” spectrum. It should be enough for the FCC to respond that these unlicensed device makers knew the tradeoff going in–you can avoid expensive licensure and use spectrum freely but you cannot object when interfered with. Firms that want interference protection and higher QoS are free to spend millions or billions of dollars on licensed spectrum. Increasingly, however, by largely remaining silent and delaying approvals, the FCC gets bogged down in proceedings and undermines the purpose of unlicensed spectrum–encourage innovators to experiment with new wireless technologies. If the delays in approving TLPS and foreseeable delays for LTE-U are any indication, the FCC is quietly slipping towards de facto beauty contests, the infamous practice of picking technology winners and losers.

The most pressing challenge in wireless telecommunications policy is transferring spectrum from inefficient legacy operators like federal agencies to the commercial sector for consumer use.

Reflecting high consumer demand for more wireless services, in early 2015 the FCC completed an auction for a small slice of prime spectrum–currently occupied by federal agencies and other non-federal incumbents–that grossed over $40 billion for the US Treasury. Increasing demand for mobile services such as Web browsing, streaming video, the Internet of Things, and gaming requires even more spectrum. Inaction means higher smartphone bills, more dropped calls, and stuttering downloads.

My latest research for the Mercatus Center, “Sweeten the Deal: Transfer of Federal Spectrum through Overlay Licenses,” was published recently and recommends the use of overlay licenses to transfer federal spectrum into commercial use. Purchasing an overlay license is like acquiring real property that contains a few tenants with unexpired leases. While those tenants have a superior possessory right to use the property, a high enough cash payment or trade will persuade them to vacate the property. The same dynamic applies for spectrum.

Overlay licenses have been used to reassign non-federal spectrum but never federal spectrum. The paper presents new evidence from a 2006 spectrum auction (AWS-1) that suggests that 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.

Policymakers are interested in spectrum policy because spectrum availability improves broadband access and generates substantial government revenues. Further, conservative estimates place the consumer surplus losses from misallocation of spectrum at hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Therefore, policymakers should favor reform proposals, like overlay licenses, that show promise in repurposing federal spectrum relatively quickly. The paper compares two policy proposals for spectrum reform: regulation-intensive dynamic spectrum sharing and market-oriented overlay licenses.

Regulation-Intensive Approach. A 2012 President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report promotes complex spectrum-sharing technologies to enable consumer use of fallow federal spectrum in order to avoid clearing agencies from their spectrum.

• According to the PCAST report, widespread dynamic spectrum sharing would take decades to implement. The proposal relies on precise government planning and complex device requirements to enable intensive use of federal spectrum. However, the sharing technologies contemplated are in early development and will not be in routine deployment for many years. Social welfare losses mount quickly in the interim.
• Despite recognizing that agencies have no incentive to improve efficient use of their spectrum, this proposal does little to encourage efficient government use of spectrum. Dynamic spectrum sharing techniques allow wasteful legacy systems to operate indefinitely, and PCAST recommends against clearing inefficient federal users.
• Implementation of the PCAST proposal would likely degenerate into regulatory failure. Previous attempts at spectrum sharing between different wireless systems, like the TV White Spaces allocation that PCAST lauds, frequently resulted in rent seeking, severe deployment delays, and relatively few consumer benefits.

Market-Based Approach. A superior reform proposal is to auction off overlay licenses to certain federal spectrum bands. These winning overlay licensees can put unused federal spectrum into service rapidly. For the remaining spectrum that agencies are using, the winning licensee can pay the agency to vacate the bands or upgrade to more efficient systems. Agency resistance may be mitigated because agencies can negotiate compensation for selling rights to their spectrum.

• The FCC has conducted overlay auctions in the past and they represent an “off-the-shelf” tool to reorder spectrum rights. In previous overlay auctions, the process was effective and winning bidders compensated existing users like state public safety agencies and public utilities to vacate their valuable spectrum.
• Overlay license auctions and clearing deadlines transfer spectrum into the market and to its highest-valued uses. For example, in as few as two years after the 2006 AWS-1 auction, existing users and federal agencies vacated their spectrum, allowing carriers to invest billions of dollars into networks and deploy mobile broadband in cities like San Francisco and New York.
• A combination of clearing federal agencies from their spectrum and using overlays to clear nonfederal users has freed about 210 MHz of prime spectrum for mobile broadband use, supplying over one third of spectrum held by mobile carriers today.

Government agencies sit on wireless spectrum worth hundreds of billions of dollars rent-free. This federal spectrum is often unused or underutilized and the misallocation of this valuable resource is socially costly. My paper proposes that Congress permit agencies to sell some of their spectrum to private parties after an overlay auction. No other reform proposal has enabled widespread consumer use and economic investment as rapidly as have overlay auctions combined with clearing deadlines. Overlays and clearing deadlines in the recent past have permitted commercial deployment of cutting-edge wireless technologies in encumbered spectrum within a few years.

Related Research Reclaiming Federal Spectrum: Proposals and Recommendations

The FCC is being dragged–reluctantly, it appears–into disputes that resemble the infamous beauty contests of bygone years, where the agency takes on the impossible task of deciding which wireless services deliver more benefits to the public. Two novel technologies used for wireless broadband–TLPS and LTE-U–reveal the growing tensions in unlicensed spectrum. The two technologies are different and pose slightly different regulatory issues but each is an attempt to bring wireless Internet to consumers. Their advocates believe these technologies will provide better service than existing wifi technology and will also improve wifi performance. Their major similarity is that others, namely wifi advocates, object that the unlicensed bands are already too crowded and these new technologies will cause interference to existing users.

The LTE-U issue is new and developing. The TLPS proceeding, on the other hand, has been pending for a few years and there are warning signs the FCC may enter into beauty contests–choosing which technologies are entitled to free spectrum–once again.

What are FCC beauty contests and why does the FCC want to avoid them? From the 1930s to the 1990s (aside from a few short-lived spectrum lotteries), the FCC handed out valuable spectrum licenses for free to applicants who showed they would benefit the public with their planned services. TV broadcasters, taxicab dispatchers, satellite communications companies, medical facilities, and others lobbied to claim their stake when new spectrum became available.

These time-consuming proceedings became known as beauty contests, reflecting the subjective nature of giving away an input often worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to “deserving” applicants. The inefficiency, delay, and predictable corruption of beauty contests were widely criticized, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that Congress permitted auctioning spectrum. Allowing markets to allocate spectrum greatly improved the chances spectrum would go to the firms that had financial incentives to put it to good use, rather than the firms that had the most persuasive insiders.

But not all spectrum is auctioned today. Decades ago the FCC realized that short-range, innovative new services could be deployed without expensive and time-consuming licensing. The agency decided to authorize low-power devices in certain bands of spectrum. Essentially, any device maker could freely deploy technologies in these bands as long as they complied with a few basic FCC rules, the Part 15 rules. The FCC left technology choices to the device makers, who share the spectrum with other–sometimes interference-prone–device makers and users. While wifi technology is the most popular and most economically significant user of unlicensed spectrum, there are many other technologies coexisting in unlicensed bands. Today, hardware companies make dozens of short-range technologies like toy RC cars, wireless speakers, Bluetooth earpieces, baby monitors, garage door openers, cordless phones, and wifi routers.

Unlicensed spectrum has downsides for device makers, however. As the FCC said in a recent proceeding, “As a general condition of operation, Part 15 devices … must accept any interference that may be received from [licensed users] or other Part 15 devices.” Operators like AT&T, Sprint, and Dish pay millions or billions of dollars for their licensed spectrum at auction. In return, however, they can exclude other wireless operators from using their spectrum assignments. In contrast, using free unlicensed spectrum means you have no protection from interference from other unlicensed and licensed users. This is intended to create an environment of permissionless innovation, where wireless entrants can be free to try new services.

In theory, this means unlicensed users cannot object when other unlicensed users deploy new technologies. In practice, however, now that unlicensed spectrum is occupied by services like Bluetooth and wifi-delivered Internet, new entrants often modify their technology to be “good neighbors.” The potential for interference also motivates established players to prevent entrants like TLPS and LTE-U from using the bands.

Richard Bennett has a good explanation of the LTE-U engineering issues before the FCC. TLPS has slightly different issues. After a few years of testing, TLPS may be approved soon, but not without a fight. TLPS is a novel wireless technology that uses a channel of spectrum that straddles unlicensed spectrum and licensed spectrum. The licensed portion is currently used by Globalstar for satellite communications but the FCC generally wishes to get away from mandating certain services–like satellite communications–and to allow licensees to use their spectrum for whatever service is demanded by consumers. For that reason, the FCC has sought, since releasing the 2010 National Broadband Plan, to make this relatively unproductive “satellite spectrum” available for land-based wireless broadband use. Knowing that the FCC is willing to be flexible to meet growing consumer broadband needs, Globalstar saw an opportunity to merge its licensed spectrum with a portion of the free, adjacent unlicensed spectrum. With this wider channel, some of it shared with existing unlicensed users, wireless broadband delivered via TLPS technology became feasible. As TLPS approval nears the finish line, however, some unlicensed users are objecting that TLPS will interfere with their services.

The FCC proceedings reveal a technical debate about interference measurements. These claims distract from the larger issue: Either the Part 15 rules mean what they say–unlicensed users have no interference protection–or the FCC is increasingly back in the business of beauty contests and deciding which services are entitled to free spectrum.

Henry Goldberg, a communications lawyer who represented Apple years ago in getting more unlicensed spectrum allocated, predicted these fights at a 2008 Information Economy Project conference.

[I]f you are a company or a municipality or a port authority or a university who has invested in unlicensed spectrum to provide a WiFi services for a fee, you’re not so sure you want someone using unlicensed spectrum to compete with you. Such players may try to use contractual rights, lawsuits, etc. to seek to limit additional entry to what has become “their” spectrum. If a “not-in-my-back-yard” dynamic takes over, the very essence of Part 15 is compromised. Vigilance is needed to fight Part 15 NIMBY.

It’s this growing Part 15 NIMBYism that concerns many spectrum policy watchers. No one wants the return of beauty contests and the FCC picking winners among different technologies.

But Goldberg has a discouraging addendum to his prescient warning against NIMBYism in unlicensed bands:

Supporter of unfettered grazing rights that I am, it doesn’t offend me to have the town permit grazing by sheep and cows, but forbid elephants.

Herein lies the problem. The FCC is being pressured to declare that TLPS is an elephant that should not be allowed in the commons filled with wifi sheep and Bluetooth cows. LTE-U will be the next target.

If the FCC encourages these kinds of complaints, the result will be customary law that is destructive to innovation in unlicensed bands. Firms will sink investments in technologies and business plans that comply with the rules, and only later learn they are violating unwritten rules.

The bigger problem is that the FCC is entering beauty contest territory once again. Even if the FCC someday prohibits “elephants” in unlicensed–current Part 15 rules say unlicensed users have no protection against others–the agency has to determine what that means. The FCC does not want to go back to the bad old days of beauty contests, specifying, in the face of intense lobbying, that only certain technologies were allowed on certain frequencies in certain places.

As firms find ways to intensely use free unlicensed spectrum, more conflicts like these may arise. Unfortunately these fights politicize FCC decisionmaking and could stymie new wireless innovations.

It may be that NIMBYism in unlicensed is inevitable. If interference in unlicensed is a regular problem and the FCC finds itself picking winners, the FCC needs to be much more cautious about allocating unlicensed spectrum. It’s worth noting that auctioning spectrum removes the temptation to engage in the ad hoc dispensations of spectrum that plagued the agency for decades. In any case, the results of the TLPS and LTE-U proceedings will have ramifications beyond the approval or denial of those technologies.

Related Reading: Super Wifi and Unlicensed Spectrum: “Spectrum Condos” How the FCC Killed a Nationwide Wireless Broadband Network

Many readers will recall the telecom soap opera featuring the GPS industry and LightSquared and the subsequent bankruptcy of LightSquared. Economist Thomas W. Hazlett (who is now at Clemson, after a long tenure at the GMU School of Law) and I wrote an article published in the Duke Law & Technology Review titled Tragedy of the Regulatory Commons: Lightsquared and the Missing Spectrum Rights. The piece documents LightSquared’s ambitions and dramatic collapse. Contrary to popular reporting on this story, this was not a failure of technology. We make the case that, instead, the FCC’s method of rights assignment led to the demise of LightSquared and deprived American consumers of a new nationwide wireless network. Our analysis has important implications as the FCC and Congress seek to make wide swaths of spectrum available for unlicensed devices. Namely, our paper suggests that the top-down administrative planning model is increasingly harming consumers and delaying new technologies.

Read commentary from the GPS community about LightSquared and you’ll get the impression LightSquared is run by rapacious financiers (namely CEO Phil Falcone) who were willing to flaunt FCC rules and endanger thousands of American lives with their proposed LTE network. LightSquared filings, on the other hand, paint the GPS community as defense-backed dinosaurs who abused the political process to protect their deficient devices from an innovative entrant. As is often the case, it’s more complicated than these morality plays. We don’t find villains in this tale–simply destructive rent-seeking triggered by poor FCC spectrum policy.

We avoid assigning fault to either LightSquared or GPS, but we stipulate that there were serious interference problems between LightSquared’s network and GPS devices. Interference is not an intractable problem, however. Interference is resolved everyday in other circumstances. The problem here was intractable because GPS users are dispersed and unlicensed (including government users), and could not coordinate and bargain with LightSquared when problems arose. There is no feasible way for GPS companies to track down and compel users to use more efficient devices, for instance, if LightSquared compensated them for the hassle. Knowing that GPS mitigation was unfeasible, LightSquared’s only recourse after GPS users objected to the new LTE network was through the political and regulatory process, a fight LightSquared lost badly. The biggest losers, however, were consumers, who were deprived of another wireless broadband network because FCC spectrum assignment prevented win-win bargaining between licensees.

Our paper provides critical background to this dispute. Around 2004, because satellite phone spectrum was underused, the FCC permitted satellite phone licensees flexibility to repurpose some of their spectrum for use in traditional cellular phone networks. (Many people are appalled to learn that spectrum policy still largely resembles Soviet-style command-and-control. The FCC tells the wireless industry, essentially: “You can operate satellite phones only in band X. You can operate satellite TV in band Y. You can operate broadcast TV in band Z.” and assigns spectrum to industry players accordingly.) Seeing this underused satellite phone spectrum, LightSquared acquired some of this flexible satellite spectrum so that LightSquared could deploy a nationwide cellular phone network in competition with Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility. LightSquared had spent $4 billion in developing its network and reportedly had plans to spend $10 billion more when things ground to a halt.

In early 2012, the Department of Commerce objected to LightSquared’s network on the grounds that the network would interfere with GPS units (including, reportedly, DOD and FAA instruments). Immediately, the FCC suspended LightSquared’s authorization to deploy a cellular network and backtracked on the 2004 rules permitting cellular phones in that band. Three months later, LightSquared declared bankruptcy. This was a non-market failure, not a market failure. This regulatory failure obtains because virtually any interference to existing wireless operations is prohibited even if the social benefits of a new wireless network are vast.

This analysis is not simply scholarly theory about the nature of regulation and property rights. We provide real-world evidence that supports our notion that, had the FCC assigned flexible, de facto property rights to GPS licensees like the FCC does in some other bands, rather than fragmented unlicensed users, LightSquared might be in operation today serving millions with wireless broadband. Our evidence comes, in fact, from LightSquared’s deals with non-GPS parties. Namely, LightSquared had interference problems with another satellite licensee on adjacent spectrum–Inmarsat.

Inmarsat provides public safety, aviation, and national security applications and hundreds of thousands of devices to government and commercial users. The LightSquared-Inmarsat interference problems were unavoidable but because Inmarsat had de facto property rights to its spectrum, it could internalize financial gains and coordinate with LightSquared. The result was classic Coasian bargaining. The two companies swapped spectrum and activated an agreement in 2010 in which LightSquared would pay Inmarsat over $300 million. Flush with cash and spectrum, Inmarsat could rationalize its spectrum and replace devices that wouldn’t play nicely with LightSquared LTE operations.

These trades avoided the non-market failure the FCC produced by giving GPS users fragmented, non-exclusive property rights. When de facto property rights are assigned to licensees, contentious spectrum border disputes typically give way to private ordering. The result is regular spectrum swaps and sales between competitors. Wireless licensees like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile deal with local interference and unauthorized operations daily because they have enforceable, exclusive rights to their spectrum. The FCC, unfortunately, never assigned these kinds of spectrum rights to the GPS industry.

The evaporation of billions of dollars of LightSquared funds was a non-market failure, not a market failure and not a technology failure. The economic loss to consumers was even greater than LightSquared’s. Different FCC rules could have permitted welfare-enhancing coordination between LightSquared and GPS. The FCC’s error was the nature of rights the agency assigned for GPS use. By authorizing the use of millions of unlicensed devices adjacent to LightSquared’s spectrum, the FCC virtually ensured that future attempts to reallocate spectrum in these bands would prove contentious. Going forward, the FCC should think far less about which technologies they want to promote and more about the nature of spectrum rights assigned. For tech entrepreneurs and policy entrepreneurs to create innovative new wireless products, they need well-functioning spectrum markets. The GPS experience shows vividly what to avoid.

Congressional debates about STELA reauthorization have resurrected the notion that TV stations “must provide a free service” because they “are using public spectrum.” This notion, which is rooted in 1930s government policy, has long been used to justify the imposition of unique “public interest” regulations on TV stations. But outdated policy decisions don’t dictate future rights in perpetuity, and policymakers abandoned the “public spectrum” rationale long ago.

All wireless services use the public spectrum, yet none of them are required to provide a free commercial service except broadcasters. Satellite television operators, mobile service providers, wireless Internet service providers, and countless other commercial spectrum users are free to charge subscription fees for their services.

There is nothing intrinsic in the particular frequencies used by broadcasters that justifies their discriminatory treatment. Mobile services use spectrum once allocated to broadcast television, but aren’t treated like broadcasters.

The fact that broadcast licenses were once issued without holding an auction is similarly irrelevant.  All spectrum licenses were granted for free before the mid-1990s. For example, cable and satellite television operators received spectrum licenses for free, but are not required to offer their video services for free.

If the idea is to prevent companies who were granted free licenses from receiving a “windfall”, it’s too late. As Jeffrey A. Eisenach has demonstrated, “the vast majority of current television broadcast licensees [92%] have paid for their licenses through station transactions.”

The irrelevance of the free spectrum argument is particularly obvious when considering the differential treatment of broadcast and satellite spectrum. Spectrum licenses for broadcast TV stations are now subject to competitive bidding at auction while satellite television licenses are not. If either service should be required to provide a free service on the basis of spectrum policy, it should be  satellite television.

Although TV stations were loaned an extra channel during the DTV transition, the DTV transition is over. Those channels have been returned and were auctioned for approximately $19 billion in 2008. There is no reason to hold TV stations accountable in perpetuity for a temporary loan.

Even if there were, the loan was  not free. Though TV stations did not pay lease fees for the use of those channels, they nevertheless paid a heavy price. TV stations were required to invest substantial sums in HDTV technology and to broadcast signals in that format long before it was profitable. The FCC required “rapid construction of digital facilities by network-affiliated stations in the top markets, in order to expose a significant number of households, as early as possible, to the benefits of DTV.” TV stations were thus forced to “bear the risks of introducing digital television” for the benefit of consumers, television manufacturers, MVPDs, and other digital media.

The FCC did not impose comparable “loss leader” requirements on MVPDs. They are free to wait until consumer demand for digital and HDTV content justifies upgrading their systems — and they are still lagging TV stations by a significant margin. According to the FCC, only about half of the collective footprints of the top eight cable MVPDs had been transitioned to all-digital channels at the end of 2012. By comparison, the DTV transition was completed in 2009.

There simply is no satisfactory rationale for requiring broadcasters to provide a free service based on their use of spectrum or the details of past spectrum licensing decisions. If the applicability of a free service requirement turned on such issues, cable and satellite television subscribers wouldn’t be paying subscription fees.

Adam and I recently published a Mercatus research paper titled Video Marketplace Regulation: A Primer on the History of Television Regulation And Current Legislative Proposals, now available on SSRN. I presented the paper at a Silicon Flatirons academic conference last week.

We wrote the paper for a policy audience and students who want succinct information and history about the complex world of television regulation. Television programming is delivered to consumers in several ways, including via cable, satellite, broadcast, IPTV (like Verizon FiOS), and, increasingly, over-the-top broadband services (like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video). Despite their obvious similarities–transmitting movies and shows to a screen–each distribution platform is regulated differently.

The television industry is in the news frequently because of problems exacerbated by the disparate regulatory treatment. The Time Warner Cable-CBS dispute last fall (and TWC’s ensuing loss of customers), the Aereo lawsuit, and the Comcast-TWC proposed merger were each caused at least indirectly by some of the ill-conceived and antiquated TV regulations we describe. Further, TV regulation is a “thicket of regulations,” as the Copyright Office has said, which benefits industry insiders at the expense of most everyone else.

We contend that overregulation of television resulted primarily because past FCCs, and Congress to a lesser extent, wanted to promote several social objectives through a nationwide system of local broadcasters:

1) Localism 2) Universal Service 3) Free (that is, ad-based) television; and 4) Competition

These objectives can’t be accomplished simultaneously without substantial regulatory mandates. Further, these social goals may even contradict each other in some respects.

For decades, public policies constrained TV competitors to accomplish those goals. We recommend instead a reliance on markets and consumer choice through comprehensive reform of television laws, including repeal of compulsory copyright laws, must-carry, retransmission consent, and media concentration rules.

At the very least, our historical review of TV regulations provides an illustrative case study of how regulations accumulate haphazardly over time, demand additional “correction,” and damage dynamic industries. Congress and the FCC focused on attaining particular competitive outcomes through industrial policy, unfortunately. Our paper provides support for market-based competition and regulations that put consumer choice at the forefront.

The FCC is set to vote later this month on rules for the incentive auction of spectrum licenses in the broadcast television band. These licenses would ordinarily be won by the highest bidders, but not in this auction. The FCC plans to ensure that Sprint and T-Mobile win licenses in the incentive auction even if they aren’t willing to pay the highest price, because it believes that Sprint and T-Mobile will expand their networks to cover rural areas if it sells them licenses at a substantial discount.

This theory is fundamentally flawed. Sprint and T-Mobile won’t substantially expand their footprints into rural areas even if the FCC were to give them spectrum licenses for free. There simply isn’t enough additional revenue potential in rural areas to justify covering them with four or more networks no matter what spectrum is used or how much it costs. It is far more likely that Sprint and T-Mobile will focus their efforts on more profitable urban areas while continuing to rely on FCC roaming rights to use networks built by other carriers in rural areas.

The television band spectrum the FCC plans to auction is at relatively low frequencies that are capable of covering larger areas at lower costs than higher frequency mobile spectrum, which makes the spectrum particularly useful in rural areas. The FCC theorizes that, if Sprint and T-Mobile could obtain additional low frequency spectrum with a substantial government discount, they will pass that discount on to consumers by expanding their wireless coverage in rural areas.

The flaw in this theory is that it considers costs without considering revenue. Sprint and T-Mobile won’t expand coverage in rural areas unless the potential for additional revenue exceeds the costs of providing rural coverage.

A study authored by Anna-Maria Kovacs, a scholar at Georgetown University, demonstrates that the potential revenue in rural areas is insufficient to justify substantial rural deployment by Sprint and T-Mobile even at lower frequencies. The study concludes that the revenue potential per square mile in areas that are currently covered by 4 wireless carriers is $41,832. The potential revenue drops to $13,632 per square mile in areas covered by 3 carriers and to $6,219 in areas covered by 2 carriers. The potential revenue in areas covered by 4 carriers is thus approximately 3.5 times greater than in areas covered by 3 carriers and nearly 8 times greater than in areas covered by 2 carriers. It is unlikely that propagation differences between even the lowest and the highest frequency mobile spectrum could reduce costs by a factor greater than three due to path loss and barriers to optimal antenna placement.

Even assuming the low frequency spectrum could lower costs by a factor greater than three, the revenue data in the Kovacs report indicates that additional low frequency spectrum would, at best, support only 1 additional carrier in areas currently covered by 3 carriers. Low frequency spectrum wouldn’t support even one additional carrier in areas that are already covered by 1 or 2 carriers: It would be uneconomic for additional carriers to deploy in those areas at any frequency.

The challenging economics of rural wireless coverage are the primary reason the FCC gave Sprint and T-Mobile a roaming right to use the wireless networks built by Verizon and AT&T even in areas where Sprint and T-Mobile already hold low frequency spectrum.

When the FCC created the automatic roaming right, it exempted carriers from the duty to provide roaming in markets where the requesting carrier already has spectrum rights. (2007 Roaming Order at ¶ 48) The FCC found that, “if a carrier is allowed to ‘piggy-back’ on the network coverage of a competing carrier in the same market, then both carriers lose the incentive to buildout into high cost areas in order to achieve superior network coverage.” (Id. at ¶ 49). The FCC subsequently repealed this spectrum exemption at the urging of Sprint and T-Mobile, because “building another network may be economically infeasible or unrealistic in some geographic portions of [their] licensed service areas.” (2010 Roaming Order at ¶ 23)

As a result, Sprint and T-Mobile have chosen to rely primarily on roaming agreements to provide service in rural areas, because it is cheaper than building their own networks. The most notorious example is Sprint, who actually reduced its rural coverage to cut costs after the FCC eliminated the spectrum exemption to the automatic roaming right. This decision was not driven by Sprint’s lack of access to low frequency spectrum — Sprint has held low frequency spectrum on a nationwide basis for years.

The limited revenue potential offered by rural areas and the superior economic alternative to rural deployment provided by FCC’s automatic roaming right indicate that Sprint and T-Mobile won’t expand their rural footprints at any frequency. Ensuring that Sprint and T-Mobile win low frequency spectrum at a substantial government discount would benefit their bottom lines, but it won’t benefit rural Americans.

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has released a new working paper by Daniel A. Lyons, professor at Boston College Law School, entitled “Innovations in Mobile Broadband Pricing.”

In 2010, the FCC passed net neutrality rules for mobile carriers and ISPs that included a “no blocking” provision (since struck down in FCC v. Verizon). The FCC prohibited mobile carriers from blocking Internet content and promised to scrutinize carriers’ non-standard pricing decisions. These broad regulations had a predictable chilling effect on firms trying new business models. For instance, Lyons describes how MetroPCS was hit with a net neutrality complaint because it allowed YouTube but not other video streaming sites on its budget LTE plan (something I’ve written on). Some critics also allege that AT&T’s Sponsored Data program is a net neutrality violation.

In his paper, Lyons explains that the FCC might still regulate mobile networks but advises against a one-size-fits-all net neutrality approach. Instead, he encourages regulatory humility in order to promote investment in mobile networks and devices and to allow new business models. For support, he points out that several developing and rich countries have permitted commercial arrangements between content companies and carriers that arguably violate principles of net neutrality. Lyons makes the persuasive argument that these “non-neutral” service bundles and pricing decisions on the whole, rather than harming consumers, expand online access and ease non-connected populations into the Internet Age. As Lyons says,

The wide range of successful wireless innovations and partnerships at the international level should prompt U.S. regulators to rethink their commitment to a rigid set of rules that limit flexibility in American broadband markets. This should be especially true in the wireless broadband space, where complex technical considerations, rapid change, and robust competition make for anything but a stable and predictable business environment.

Further,

In the rapidly changing world of information technology, it is sometimes easy to forget that experimental new pricing models can be just as innovative as new technological developments. By offering new and different pricing models, companies can provide better value to consumers or identify niche segments that are not well-served by dominant pricing strategies.

Despite the January 2014 court decision striking down the FCC’s net neutrality rules, it’s an issue that hasn’t died. Lyons’ research provides support for the position that a fixation on enforcing net neutrality, however defined, distracts policymakers from serious discussion of how to expand online access. Rules should be written with consumers and competition in mind. Wired ISPs get the lion’s share of scholars’ attention when discussing net neutrality. In an increasingly wireless world, Lyon’s paper provides important research to guide future US policies.

Sprint’s Chairman, Masayoshi Son, is coming to Washington to explain how wireless competition in the US would be improved if only there were less of it.

After buying Sprint last year for $21.6 billion, he has floated plans to buy T-Mobile. When antitrust officials voiced their concerns about the proposed plan’s potential impact on wireless competition, Son decided to respond with an unusual strategy that goes something like this: The US wireless market isn’t competitive enough, so policymakers need to approve the merger of the third and fourth largest wireless companies in order to improve competition, because going from four nationwide wireless companies to three will make things even more competitive. Got it? Me neither.

An argument like that takes nerve, especially now. When AT&T attempted to buy T-Mobile a few years ago, Sprint led the charge against it, arguing vociferously that permitting the market to consolidate from four to only three nationwide wireless companies would harm innovation and wireless competition. After the Administration blocked the merger, T-Mobile rebounded in the marketplace, which immediately made it the poster child for the Administration’s antitrust policies.

It also makes Son’s plan a non-starter. Allowing Sprint to buy T-Mobile three years after telling AT&T it could not would take incredible regulatory nerve. It would be hard to convince anyone that such an immediate about face in favor of the company that fought the previous merger the hardest isn’t motivated by a desire to pick winners in losers in the marketplace or even outright cronyism. That would be true in almost any circumstance, but is doubly true now that T-Mobile is flourishing. It’s hard to swallow the idea that it would harm competition if a nationwide wireless company were to buy T-Mobile —  unless the purchaser is Sprint.

The special irony here is that Son has built his reputation on a knack for relentless innovation. When he bought Sprint, he expressed confidence that Sprint would become the number 1 company in the world. But, a year later, it is T-Mobile that is rebounding in the marketplace, even though T-Mobile has fewer customers than Sprint and less spectrum than Sprint. Buying into T-Mobile’s success now wouldn’t improve Son’s reputation for innovation, but it would double down on his confidence. I expect US regulators will want to see how he does with Sprint before betting the wireless competition farm on a prodigal Son.

In December, Reps. Upton and Walden announced that they intend to update the Communications Act, which saw its last major revision in 1996. Today marks the deadline to submit initial comments regarding updating the Act. Below is my submission, which includes reference to a Mercatus paper by Raymond Gifford analyzing the Digital Age Communications (DACA) reports. These bipartisan reports would largely replace and reform our deficient communications laws.

Dear Chairman Upton, As you and Rep. Walden recently acknowledged, U.S. communications law needs updating to remove accumulated regulatory excess and to strengthen market forces. When the 1934 Communications Act was passed, there was a national monopoly telephone provider and Congress’s understanding of radio spectrum physics was rudimentary. Chief among the Communication Act’s many flaws was giving the Federal Communication Commission authority to regulate wired and wireless communications according to “public interest, convenience, and necessity,” an amorphous standard that has been frequently abused. If delegating this expansive grant of discretion to the FCC was ever sensible, it clearly no longer is. Today, eight decades later, with competition between video, telephone, and Internet providers taking place over wired and wireless networks, the public interest standard simply invites costly rent-seeking and stifles technologies and business opportunities. Like an old cottage receiving several massive additions spanning decades by different clumsy architects, communications law is a disorganized and dilapidated structure that should be razed and reconstituted. As new technologies emerged since the 1930s—broadcast television, cable, satellite, mobile phones, the Internet—and upended existing regulated businesses, the FCC and Congress layered on new rules attempting to mitigate the distortions. Congressional attempts at reforming communications laws have appeared regularly ever since the 1996 amendments. During the last such attempt, in 2011, the Mercatus Center released a study discussing and summarizing a model for communications law reform known as the Digital Age Communications Act (DACA). That model legislation—consisting of five reports released in 2005 and 2006—came from the bipartisan DACA Working Group. The reports addressed five areas: 1. Regulatory framework; 2. Universal service; 3. Spectrum reform; 4. Federal-state jurisdiction; and 5. Institutional reform. The DACA reports represent a flexible, market-oriented agenda from dozens of experts that, if implemented, would spur innovation, encourage competition, and benefit consumers. The regulatory framework report is the centerpiece recommendation and adopts a proposal largely based on the Federal Trade Commission Act, which provides a reformed FCC with nearly a century of common law for guidance. Significantly, the reports replace the FCC’s misused “public interest” standard with the general “unfair competition standard” from the FTC Act. Despite the passage of time, those reports have held up remarkably well. The 2011 Mercatus paper describing the DACA reports is attached for submission in the record. The scholars at Mercatus are happy to discuss this paper and the cited materials below—including the DACA reports—further with Energy & Commerce Committee staff as they draft white papers and reform proposals. Thank you for initiating discussion about updating the Communications Act. Reform can give America’s innovative technology and telecommunications sector a predictable and technology-neutral legal framework. When Congress replaces command-and-control rules with market forces, consumers will be the primary beneficiaries. Sincerely, Brent Skorup Research Fellow, Technology Policy Program Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Resources

Digital Age Communications Act (DACA) Working Groups Reports.

JEFFREY A. EISENACH ET AL., THE TELECOM REVOLUTION: AN AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY (1995).

Raymond L. Gifford, The Continuing Case for Serious Communications Law Reform, Mercatus Center Working Paper No. 11-44 (2011).

PETER HUBER, LAW AND DISORDER IN CYBERSPACE: ABOLISH THE FCC AND LET COMMON LAW RULE THE TELECOSM (1997).

It’s encouraging to see more congressional movement in repurposing federal spectrum for commercial use. This week, a bill rewarding federal agencies for ending or moving their wireless operations passed a House committee. The bipartisan Federal Spectrum Incentive Act of 2013 allows agencies to benefit when they voluntarily give up their spectrum for FCC auction.

In the past, an agency could receive a portion of auction proceeds but only to compensate the agency for relocating its systems. Agencies complained, sensibly, that this arrangement does little to encourage them to give up spectrum. Federal agencies had to go through the hassle of modifying their wireless equipment and sharing spectrum with another agency but were left no better off than before. In some cases, the complications with sharing spectrum made them worse off, so there was risk of downside and no upside.

This House bill provides that an agency can keep 1% of auction proceeds in addition to relocation costs. With this additional carrot, the hope is, agencies will be more willing to modify their equipment and make room for mobile broadband carriers.

The bill is a good start but I think it’s a little too restrictive. A one percent claim on auction receipts seems insufficient to induce dramatically improved agency participation. Given how poorly federal agencies use spectrum, Congress should be doing much more to force agencies to justify their spectrum usage. Additionally, how agencies can use that 1% benefit seems too limited. The bill allows the funds to be used 1) to offset sequestration cuts, and 2) to compensate other agencies if they agree to share spectrum. Some journalists are reporting that agencies can use the funds to expand existing programs but I don’t see that language in the proposed bill. It wouldn’t be a bad idea, though, to have fewer restrictions on the payments since it would likely increase agency participation.

Further Reading:

See my Mercatus paper on the subject of repurposing federal spectrum.

Sens. Lamar Alexander and Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill that would ban cellphone calls on planes today, just before the FCC votes on the issue. Alexander, a small government conservative, had this to say in a statement:

Keeping phone conversations private on commercial flights may not be enshrined in the Constitution, but it is certainly enshrined in common sense. This legislation is about avoiding something nobody wants: nearly 2 million passengers a day, hurtling through space, trapped in 17-inch-wide seats, yapping their innermost thoughts.

As I pointed out in Reason last week, the fear that if airlines are given the option of allowing cellphones in-flight then we’ll have millions of “yapping” passengers is contrary to all evidence. First of all, not all airlines will allow in-flight phone use, giving folks who fear “yapping” a choice.

If [demand for phone-free flights] is there, as it certainly seems to be, airlines will respond with private rules and bans on cellphone use without government’s help. And private rules have the advantage of being much more varied and flexible than the difficult-to-change, one-size-fits-all rules we can get from government. We can see this at work in Europe and Asia, which already allow cellphone use in-flight. According to the New York Times, “Virgin Atlantic allows unlimited data connections, but it lets only six people talk on a cellphone at once. Some Lufthansa flights allow data connections through a cellphone, but no phone calls.”

By introducing this legislation, Alexander is essentially saying that he doesn’t trust markets to meet consumer demand, and that a government edict is the better course. More to the point:

Even on flights that do allow cell phone use, it won’t be “chaos” as Rep. DeFazio predicts. Humans have a pretty good history of eliciting good behavior from each other through the development of norms without the need for codified rules–public or private. According to the FAA, civil authorities in countries were in-flight cellphone use is permitted reported no “cases of air rage or flight attendant interference related to passengers using cell phones on aircraft equipped with on-board cellular telephone base stations.”

Having the government tell airlines what services they can and can’t offer their customers is not “commons sense” as Alexander puts it; it’s big-government paternalism. Perhaps I have a higher opinion of my fellow Americans, including travelers from Tennessee, but I really doubt that if an airline allows cellphone use, then we will necessarily see endless mindless “yapping.” Americans would probably behave like the Europeans and Asians who already have this choice, being judicious about using their phone and courteous when they do.

Call it what you want: a bailout, a thumb on the scales, bidder restrictions–the FCC might conspicuously intervene in the 2015 incentive auctions at the behest of smaller carriers and public interest advocates.

Chairman Wheeler’s recent comments indicate the FCC may devise a way to prevent the largest two carriers–AT&T and Verizon–from purchasing “too much” of the television broadcasters’ spectrum at auction. AT&T likely sees the writing on the wall and argues that if there are auction limits, the restrictions should apply only to the auction, rather than more extreme restrictions that would penalize AT&T and Verizon, the largest carriers, for previously-acquired spectrum. As The Switch’s Brian Fung put it,

the small carriers favor what are called “asymmetric” spectrum caps that affect various carriers differently, while opponents prefer “symmetric” caps that don’t account for existing market positions.

While I wish AT&T put up more of a fight to auction interventions, they (and staff at the FCC) are handicapped in pursuing an unrestricted auction. The blame lies mostly with Congress who gave the FCC vague (thus ripe for abuse) and conflicting mandates spanning decades. The 1993 law authorizing auctions, for instance, requires the FCC to “avoid[] excessive concentration of licenses” and to “disseminat[e] licenses among a wide variety of applicants” among other regulatory carve-outs for smaller competitors. These latter requirements, if implemented as rigorously as smaller carriers would like, directly undermine the purpose of the 2012 American Taxpayer Relief Act that requires the upcoming spectrum auctions raise $7 billion for a public safety broadband network and $20 billion for deficit reduction.

By asymmetrically penalizing AT&T and Verizon, the FCC increases the probability the auction fails to raise the tens of billions of dollars needed (see Fred Campbell’s recent paper). I haven’t heard a policymaker speak about the incentive auction without remarking how extraordinarily complex it is. That complexity–as was made clear in this week’s Senate hearing on the subject–means no one knows how much spectrum will be auctioned off or how much money will be raised. I was doubtful the FCC would secure the called-for 120 MHz for auction in the first place, but the Senate hearing convinced me that they might not get even 60 MHz. If the FCC meddles too much and the broadcasters aren’t assured they’ll get top dollar for their spectrum, the broadcasters might not show up to sell.

For many reasons, the FCC should ignore the pressures to restrict the large carriers in bidding. Smaller carriers argue the large carriers will outbid them only to preclude competition and hoard the spectrum. Every major carrier is spending billions to expand its footprint and capacity rapidly so the hoarding argument is hard to accept (not to mention, carriers face FCC build out requirements). The hoarding argument also confounds me because AT&T and Verizon are at the forefront arguing for more spectrum auctions, particularly spectrum from federal agencies. Would they want the market flooded with new spectrum only so they could spend billions to hoard it?

Asymmetric auction restrictions also resemble a bailout for smaller carriers. T-Mobile and Sprint–who most actively lobby for auction restrictions–are not mom-and-pop establishments. Each is a sophisticated, powerful corporation with access to capital markets and backed by larger international telecoms–Germany’s Deutsche Telekom for T-Mobile and Japan’s SoftBank for Sprint. DT and SoftBank have both pledged to spend billions in the next few years to improve their American carrier’s competitive position. Such carriers do not need an FCC handout.

The bailout resemblance is more apparent when you realize Sprint has been hamstrung for nearly a decade with damaging business decisions. Three come immediately to mind: 1) the dreadful merger with Nextel in 2005; 2) the ill-fated bet in 2008 to forgo LTE rollout in favor of WiMax, a competing 4G standard; and 3) the loss of over one million customers when it discontinued its push-to-talk iDEN service for network upgrades. The losses from the Nextel merger alone approach $30 billion.

To be clear, I don’t second-guess Sprint’s decisions. They did what innovative firms are supposed to do in attempting big, risky investments. However, it should not be the job of the FCC to favor some firms through spectrum auctions because some carriers’ business decisions did not pan out. That is not a competitive wireless auction–that is an FCC-orchestrated bailout. Granted, the FCC has been handed conflicting mandates. The Commission has ample discretion, however, to conduct a competitive auction that both complies with the law and improves chances of reaching the ambitious revenue goals. Intense meddling with auction results could prove disastrous.

One year ago I wrote that conservatives were the leading voices in technology policy. Conservative leadership on tech policy issues became even more apparent last week, when House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) announced plans to update the Communications Act for the Internet era (#CommActUpdate). Virtually everyone recognizes that the Act, which Rep. Walden noted was “written during the Great Depression and last updated when 56 kilobits per second via dial-up modem was state of the art,” is now hopelessly out of date. But it was conservative leadership that was willing to begin the legislative process necessary to update it.

Although the term “progressive” literally means “advocating progress, change, improvement, or reform, as opposed to wishing to maintain things as they are,” some political progressives have focused their communications advocacy on maintaining the status quo. In response to the #CommActUpdate, Free Press said, “We’re not going to get a better act than we have now.” (Communications Daily, Dec. 5, 2013 (subscription required)) Free Press, which describes itself as a “movement to change media and technology policies,” also told Comm Daily, “The IP transition should be governed by the laws on the books today.”

The “do-nothing” approach advocated by Free Press is symptomatic of the regressive policies pursued by some communications advocates today. The laws Free Press seeks to preserve unreasonably discriminate among similar networks providing substantially the same services based solely on their historical identity. Among other things, this discriminatory statutory framework artificially shifts the costs of communications services provided to corporations to residential consumers, inhibits investment in the modern communications infrastructure to serve rural and low-income areas, and distorts competition.

When did self-described “progressives” start believing that Congress cannot improve such painfully outdated laws?

I have more faith in the legislative process than Free Press. I am confident that Congress can work in a bipartisan way to improve laws that are unfairly subsidizing business services at the expense of residential consumers, inhibiting investment in modern communications infrastructure, and distorting competition. Previous revisions to the Communications Act have not provoked partisan rancor, and this one shouldn’t either. Policymakers and advocates from both right and left of center understand the importance of ensuring that consumer-focused communications laws provide a level playing field for all market participants and foster the investment necessary to bring high-speed Internet services to every American.

Of course, improving the act will require that Congress conduct a thorough examination of the current communications market and retain only those policies that have proven successful – which is why the #CommActUpdate announcement is so important. Reviewing the Communications Act will take time, and in a global economy, we have no more time to waste.

There is bipartisan agreement that the 1996 Telecom Act was antiquated only shortly after President Clinton’s signature had dried on the legislation. There is also consensus that spectrum policy, still largely grounded in the 1934 communications statute, absolutely distorts today’s wireless markets. And there is frequent criticism from thought leaders, right and left, that the FCC has been, for decades, too accommodating to the firms it regulates and too beholden to the status quo (economist Thomas Hazlett quips the agency’s initials stand for “Forever Captured by Corporations”).

For these reasons, members of Congress every few years announce their intention to reform the 1934 and 1996 communications laws and modernize the FCC. Yesterday, some powerful House members unexpectedly reignited hopes that Congress would overhaul our telecom, broadband, and video laws. In a Google Hangout (!), Reps. Fred Upton and Greg Walden said they wanted to take on the ambitious task of passing a new law in 2015.

Much depends on next year’s elections and the composition of Congress, but hopefully the announcement spurs a major re-write that eliminates regulatory distortions in communications, much as airlines and transportation were deregulated in the 1970s–an effort led by reformist Democrats.

About ten years ago, more than fifty scholars and technologists crafted reports which constituted the Digital Age Communications Act (or DACA) that is largely deregulatory (a majority of the group had served in Democratic administrations, interestingly enough). In 2005, then-Sen. Jim DeMint proposed a bill similar to the working group’s proposals. The working group’s recommendations aged very well in eight years–which you can’t say about the 1996 Act–and represents a great starting point for future legislation.

As Adam has said the DACA reports have five primary reform objectives:

– Replacing the amorphous “public interest” standard with a consumer welfare standard, which is more well-established in field of antitrust law – Eliminate regulatory silos and level the playing field through deregulation – Comprehensively reform spectrum not just through more auctioning but through clear property rights – Reform universal service by either voucherizing it or devolving it to the States and let them run their own telecom welfare programs; and – Significantly reforming & downsizing the scope of the FCC’s power of the modern information economy

DACA redefines the FCC as a specialized competition agency for the communications sector. The FCC largely sees itself as a competition agency today but the current statutes don’t represent that gradual change in purpose. The FCC is slow, arbitrary, Balkanizes industries artificially, and attempts to regulate in areas it isn’t equipped to regulate–the agency has a notoriously bad record in federal courts. These characteristics create a poor environment for substantial investments in technology and communications infrastructure. The DACA proposals aren’t perfect but it is a resilient framework that minimizes the effect of special interests in communications and encourages investments that improve consumers’ lives.

Both parties of Congress has been increasingly critical of federal agencies’ inefficient use of spectrum in the past few years and it seems like agencies are getting the message. The NTIA, which is the official manager of federal agency spectrum, released a letter yesterday announcing that the Department of Defense would be relocating some of its systems. Defense had reached an agreement with broadcasters that Defense systems will share spectrum in the Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) band.

The soon-to-be vacated band held by Defense will eventually be auctioned off–hopefully in 2014–for billions of dollars and likely used for mobile broadband provided by wireless carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile. These carriers face serious congestion problems because of government-created scarcity of spectrum.

The carriers actually had targeted some of BAS spectrum because they weren’t convinced Defense would be willing to move their systems. The broadcaster deal reached with Defense means everyone’s apparently happy–the broadcasters can keep their BAS spectrum, the feds get new equipment and Congress off their back (temporarily), and the carriers get new spectrum for auction.

The deal is welcome news because the spectrum will be put to a higher-valued use once auctioned. The federal government pays almost nothing for its own spectrum and is a poor steward of the resource. Transferring spectrum from agencies to carriers means lower phone bills and more mobile broadband coverage. Government agencies are notoriously resistant to moving their systems or sharing with others, so entering into a sharing pact with the broadcasters indicates some of the resistance is thawing.

It’s not unequivocal good news, though.

The government is clearing out from a 25 MHz band of spectrum and occupying the larger, 85 MHz BAS band that will be shared with broadcasters. The military will need a larger band because sharing imposes some capacity constraints necessitating new, agile systems that search the airwaves to make sure they don’t interfere with existing broadcast users. Dynamic sharing like this only adds to the cost and complexity and may imperil next years’ planned auction.

Further, the BAS band is unavailable for auction only because of the antiquated command-and-control regime the FCC uses to award spectrum licenses. BAS is mostly used for electronic news gathering, which relays local and national newscasts from reporters on the scene to broadcast studios. Broadcasters have used BAS spectrum since the 1960s when it was allocated to them for free.

In a market, broadcasters likely would not have as much BAS spectrum as they currently have. In fact, because of technology changes and squeezed newsroom budgets, broadcasters are finding cheaper alternatives. Increasingly, journalists are using carriers’ LTE technology to transmit their breaking newscasts since the technology costs a fraction of the cost of news vans and equipment needed for BAS transmissions. That is to say, there are alternative business models in the absence of Soviet-style allocations.

So despite these industry changes, BAS spectrum cannot be auctioned for its highest-valued use (probably mobile broadband) under current FCC rules. Further, it will be even more difficult to bring the benefits of auctions to the airwaves if federal users are intermingling with existing users, broadcasters in this case. It’s a trend to be wary of. Let’s just hope that next year’s planned auctions occur on time so that more consumers can benefit from mobile broadband.