Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

700 MHz Auction: FCC Mandates Test of Wireless Net Neutrality

This article, published by The Heartland Institute, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Hance Haney: While noting that Internet business models are always evolving, Hance Haney, director and senior fellow of the Technology & Democracy Project at the Discovery Institute, said mandated market experiments can create problems. The rest of the article can be found here.

Dial-a-porn goes country

Just when you thought you needed another example of the law of unintended consequences, here it comes—this time from Federal telecommunications regulation. Amid the recent discussions of broadcast decency, á la carte, and media ownership at the FCC, few have noticed that the FCC is investigating an alleged scam of epic proportions. Soon after Woodrow Wilson finished making the world safe Read More ›

FCC Inquiry Shows Broadband Regulation Unnecessary

[PDF] Before theFederal Communications CommissionWashington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of:Broadband Industry Practices ))))) WC Docket No. 07-52 REPLY COMMENTS OF HANCE HANEYDIRECTOR & SENIOR FELLOW – TECHNOLOGY & DEMOCRACY PROJECTDISCOVERY INSTITUTE The comments in this proceeding[1] fail to paint a compelling justification for the Commission to subject broadband service providers to the uncertainties and burdens of a new regulatory Read More ›

FCC a Special-Interest Playground When Reviewing Mergers

It’s been almost two months since the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice cleared the AT&T/BellSouth merger with no conditions. For reasons of history and politics, the Federal Communications Commission gets to conduct an essentially redundant review of this and other telecom mergers even though it possesses little if any antitrust expertise. FCC merger proceedings, observed former House Commerce Read More ›

Comments on the FCC’s Proposal to Reform Cable Franchising

Before theFederal Communications CommissionWashington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of: Implementation of Section 621(a)(1) of the CableCommunications Policy Act of 1984 as amendedby the Cable Television Consumer Protection andCompetition Act of 1992 MB Docket No. 05-311 COMMENTS OF HANCE HANEY DIRECTOR & SENIOR FELLOW – TECHNOLOGY & DEMOCRACY PROJECTDISCOVERY INSTITUTE Discovery Institute’s Technology and Democracy Project (TDP), founded in 1990, Read More ›

Comment on 3/2/04 DC Court Ruling

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, largely vacated the local network unbundling rules adopted August 2003 in the Federal Communications Commission’s so-called Triennial Review Order, but upheld key parts of the FCC’s order eliminating requirements that local telephone companies (i.e., Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers-ILECs) share with Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) new fiber-optic and hybrid (i.e., Read More ›

Strike Three at the FCC

original article (subscription to The Wall Street Journal required to access article) Apart from its steel tariffs, the Bush Administration’s biggest economic blunder has been the hash it has made of telecom regulation. The good news is that a federal court has just handed the White House a chance to make amends. The opportunity comes courtesy of a Tuesday D.C. Read More ›

Making Broadband Bloom

Content, some say, is king. Well, I am discontent. At the moment, struggling with RealPlayer and RealOne, I conclude that streaming video does not work. What passes for broadband in the United States — 200 to 800 kilobits per second — simply cannot handle video. The paucity of video education and entertainment on the Net thwarts the “life after television” Read More ›

Martin and Lewis at the FCC

The Federal Communications Commission’s February 20 ruling on telecom competition policy is truly beyond satire. Writing into the night like a high school student cobbling together a term paper just before semester’s end, cutting and pasting a 400-page monstrosity, forming a majority by clandestine negotiations behind the chairman’s back, is crazy enough. But then add the two Democratic commissioners, gifts Read More ›