The U.S. telecommunications industry has come under scrutiny amid concerns that regulatory policies have been too permissive. These concerns are perhaps most prominent in the residential broadband market where there is a perception that the “duopoly” between telephone carriers (DSL...

Like elsewhere in the developing world, wireless markets now play a crucial role in Latin American economic growth. Mobile telephone networks increasingly provide the communications infrastructure that has largely been lacking throughout the region. Yet, governments have generally made only...

The traditional system of radio spectrum allocation has inefficiently restricted wireless services. Alternatively, liberal licenses ceding de facto spectrum ownership rights yield incentives for operators to maximize airwave value. These authorizations have been widely used for mobile services...

In the Federal Communications Commission, Ronald Coase exposed deep foundations via normative argument buttressed by astute historical observation. The government controlled scarce frequencies, issuing sharply limited use rights. Spillovers were said to be otherwise endemic. Coase saw that...

Strategic investments by wireless carriers and others are generating rapid development of the “mobile ecology,” increasing modularity even while embracing and extending vertical controls. Coordination among complementary asset owners and simultaneous rivalry among platforms suggests that the...

Vertical restrictions have theoretically ambiguous efficiency effects. Marketplace evidence is therefore required to reveal the presence of anti-competitive foreclosure. The bundling of mobile phones with cellular network service offers one such market test. Two European nations — Finland and...

In 2010, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) determined that up to 20 television channels should be shifted to mobile services. If successful, the reform could generate over $1 trillion in social gains. To achieve these efficiencies, regulators rejected traditional tools, which...

The Federal Communications Commission's Network Neutrality Order regulates how broadband networks explain their services to customers, mandates that subscribers be permitted to deploy whatever computers, mobile devices, or applications they like for use with the network access service they...

Network neutrality (NN) regulations governing how broadband Internet Service Providers (ISPs) package and price high-speed last mile access are being considered. Advocates say such rules are necessary to separate transport and application layers of the Internet, protecting innovation at the...

Tragedy of the anti-commons occurs when property rules fail to enable efficient social coordination. In radio spectrum, rights issued to airwave users have traditionally been severely truncated, leaving gains from trade unexploited. The social losses that Ronald Coase (1959) asserted, appealing...