Today, a patchwork of regulation applies to the rates, terms, and conditions cable and telephone companies pay for access to poles, ducts, and conduits. Concerned about the differences in pole attachment rates paid by communications carriers, the Federal Communications Commission ('FCC') is...

There are 2,007 municipalities across the United States that provide electricity service to their constituents. Of these, over 600 provide some sort of communications services to the community. An important policy question is whether or not public investment in communications crowds out private...

Under Section 629 of the Communications Act, Congress directed the FCC to adopt regulations to promote a retail market for set-top boxes. The Commission's first attempt was the ill-fated CableCard experiment, which - by the Commission's own admission - was a dismal failure. In response, the...

One important concern for the upcoming and highly-complex voluntary incentive auctions for broadcast television spectrum is the degree to which the largest mobile wireless providers will be allowed to participate. Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice encouraged the Federal Communications...

One goal of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”) is to provide all Americans with access to affordable broadband services, particularly to those Americans living in rural markets where demand and cost conditions do not favor network deployment. At the same time, there...

Countries around the world are increasingly concerned as to whether the adoption of broadband technology by their respective citizens is sufficient to support economic growth and social development. Unfortunately, such concerns are often expressed in terms of where a country ranks among its...

In 1999, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) began to grant incumbent local exchange carriers (“LECs”) pricing flexibility on special access services in some Metropolitan Statistical Areas (“MSAs”) when specific evidence of competitive alternatives is present. The propriety...

In 1999, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) began to grant incumbent local exchange carriers (“LECs”) pricing flexibility on special access services in some Metropolitan Statistical Areas (“MSAs”) when specific evidence of competitive alternatives is present. The propriety...

The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") recently announced a new "market power" test to analyze whether forbearance is appropriate under Section 10 of the Communications Act. As we explain, the standard for forbearance set forth by the FCC effectively renders, perhaps inadvertently,...

In this paper, we explore whether broadband investment by municipalities has an effect on economic growth. To do so, we employ an econometric model to compare economic growth in Lake County, Florida, with other similar Florida counties. In 2001, Lake County - a small county in central Florida -...