PFF’s Digital Age Communications Act (DACA) project included a report on spectrum policy by a working group of experts that Larry White of NYU and I co-chaired. That report noted the “widespread dissatisfaction with the legacy command-control-system” and that “the costs associated with inefficient utilization of the spectrum under [that system] have become enormous.” The report went on to endorse a market system as the best way to “assure that spectrum is allocated to its best and highest-valued uses,” noting that “there is no serious contender for a system that can be expected to perform as well or better.”

An (almost) as articulate a case for a market-based system is contained in an article written by Reed Hundt when he was FCC Chairman (and coauthored by Greg Rosston who was also member of our DACA working group). (See IEEE Communications Magazine, December 1995). That article notes that “The key to this investment boom [then occurring in wireless] is the FCC’s decision to grant flexibility in the use of PCS spectrum. PCS licensees have the flexibility to provide the services most valuable to consumers in the same way companies throughout our economy provide the services consumers demand. This is a sea change in FCC policy, and it should be continued.”

This week I appeared on C-SPAN's weekly program "The Communicators" and discussed a wide variety of communications and media policy issues including: the outlook for telecom & media legislation in the new Democratic Congress, the First Amendment treatment of new media technologies, Net neutrality regulation and the need for universal service and spectrum policy reform.

The video can be viewed here and I apologize in advance if I put you to sleep!

What if Google's lobbying efforts fall short and it can't secure net neutrality language in a new statute? Reuters reports:

"If the legislators...insist on neutrality, we will be happy. If they do not put it in, we will be less happy but then we will have to wait and see whether or not there actually is any abuse," Vint Cerf, a Google vice president and one of the pioneers of the Internet, told a news conference in Bulgaria.

"If we are not successful in our arguments ... then we will simply have to wait until something bad happens and then we will make known our case to the Department of Justice's anti-trust division," he said Tuesday.

Waiting to see if there is actually an abuse. Relying on antitrust law to punish abusers of market power. Where have I heard that? Oh yes, from PFF fellows on a near-daily basis (see our Net Neutrality primer, and recent op-eds by Ray Gifford [here and here] and Kyle Dixon [here] and testimony by Ray and Kyle, for current examples), and from the larger intellectual community that participated in the DACA project (see recent DACA net neutrality statement). Glad to see a NN supporter realizes there is an alternative to legislation that could prevent future Internet innovation.

UPDATE (4:08 pm): We now have a button on our PFF home page, directly below the Aspen link, leading those interested to more information on net neutrality. The page is here.

As the debate over net neutrality, franchise reform, and assorted fragments of telecom legislation continues on Capitol Hill, a meta-consideration, as follows:

From Madison's "factions" to Jonathan Rauch's "special interests" and the rent-seekers described by public choice economists like James Buchanan, we are all sophisticates now; we have lost our illusions about democracy. What happens in the legislature will be at best a balancing of factions and interests, mostly monied. This is just what legislatures do, right? Their job is to balance these interests. A and B earnestly petition the legislature, each arguing for some benefit, and so the legislature gives something to A, and something to B. It is all about this sort of compromise.

Wrong. Certainly, this happens. But it is a grave error to think that this is the proper function of a legislature. Each of

PFF published a Progress Snapshot today by Kyle Dixon titled "Rhetoric vs. Reality: Lessig and McChesney on Network Neutrality." The essay responds to an op-ed in the June 8 Washington Post by Larry Lessig and Robert McChesney promoting net neutrality legislation. Here's Kyle's opening paragraph:

Like most expressions of populist idealism, there is much to admire about the most recent exhortation by Professors Lawrence Lessig and Robert McChesney on the issue of "network neutrality." (This is true even though, for the moment, Congress has declined to take the bait, rejecting their calls for stringent rules when the House adopted a telecom reform bill last night.[1]) The professors' op-ed in the June 8th Washington Post implores Congress to "save the Internet" from "deep-pocketed corporations" who aim to be "content gatekeepers" that "sell access to the express lane" and "relegate everyone else to the digital equivalent of a winding dirt road."[2] If nothing else, this rhetoric is stirring. Viewed out of context, it masterfully corners even skeptical readers with all the inescapable "logic" endured by the first person forced to answer: "When did you stop beating your wife?"

It's worth reading the Snapshot in full.

As the net neutrality debate hits a fever pitch of hysteria and cataclysm, it is nice to return to a competition policy model for policing the issue. With a strong nod to Jim Speta, here is a sound, well conceived, thoughtful and ingenious way to deal with it.

News this week that proponents of network neutrality regulation are redoubling their efforts in the Senate reminds us that this legislative battle is far from over [TRDaily subscription required]. Also ongoing is the insistence -- in (virtually) all neutrality proposals -- that regulators pretend consumers will never have a choice of providers using technology other than cable modems and DSL. Sadly, if those favoring this regulation of the broadband Internet emerge victorious, make believe may become real, as I discuss in a recent op-ed.

The nationwide debate regarding whether and how states and cities should help regulate digital age communications has evolved considerably in recent months. Thus, it is interesting to note how well areas of developing consensus were anticipated by a working group of university and other scholars back in autumn of last year.

Much can, and no doubt will, be said about recent efforts to address "network neutrality" concerns by granting the FCC authority to adjudicate disputes relating to its Policy Statement on this issue. Certainly, these efforts can be seen as an important step forward -- at least compared to proposals that Congress mandate network neutrality immediately and in all circumstances. But there are also clear downsides to this "adjudication authority" approach and, in the final analysis, one wonders whether this kind of legislation would change the FCC's behavior as a practical matter.

As I mentioned in my testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee and again at an economics conference this week, addressing network neutrality concerns on a case-by-case basis can mitigate some of the potential risks associated with prophylactic rules in this area. But it's worth underscoring another benefit that would result if Congress adopted this approach in new legislation: it would clarify government's authority to address the concerns underlying proposed network neutrality mandates.