Mark Jamison

[Commentary] The short answer is, “No!” In an independent regulatory agency like the Federal Communications Commission, political alliances should be left at the door. That has not been the case the past few years and now is the time for change.

Politics isn’t the only thing to blame for the wide swings in FCC regulatory decision-making. The agency has also lost its way. Originally designed to regulate monopoly telephone companies, oversee broadcasters who had exclusive rights, and manage scarce radio spectrum, the FCC’s authorizing statues are badly outdated, despite having been updated in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Now that competition is the norm, industry players seek to use the agency’s authority for ex ante regulations to hinder rivals, to the detriment of customers. A statutory change should direct the agency to focus on managing radio spectrum and, if needed, subsidies for broadband in rural, high cost areas where affordability is an issue. It should restrict the agency from engaging in ex ante regulation except in the case of actual monopoly, and when a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, followed up with evaluations, demonstrates that ex ante regulation improves outcomes for customers. Absent a statutory change, the commission itself can use its authority to forebear from regulation wherever there is competition and means test its subsidies.

[Mark Jamison is part of the FCC transition team for President Trump. He is the Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida]

[Commentary] In a nutshell, the traditional approach to assessing market power is to first define “market” and then define “power.” But what if markets are rapidly changing so that defining one is illusive? And what if what appears to be power is fleeting or is actually earned by a company simply doing a great job for customers?

It’s time to look for a new approach. Market boundaries and market outcomes result from basic conditions and people’s decisions. In tech, by the time we observe the boundaries and outcomes, they are no longer relevant, and we should therefore rely instead on analyses of the basic conditions and decisions.

[Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida and was selected by President-elect Donald Trump to lead his FCC transition team.]

[Commentary] Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has often been criticized for his lack of effective leadership. Politicization, the decline of analytical work, and lack of transparency have plagued the agency. Perhaps the most challenging job for the new chairman will be rebuilding the agency’s credibility, pushing back the political opportunists, and mending the commission’s internal divisions. Fortunately, previous chairmen have provided some lessons on how to do this:

• Stop the wolves at the door
• Engage the larger mission
• Build a strong staff
• Manage political capital

[Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida]

[Commentary] Do more subsidies actually finish a job and provide a net benefit? Apparently not. Customers’ spending habits are telling us they have other priorities. Furthermore, people advocating more subsidies for broadband tend to ignore how inefficient the subsidy programs are and exaggerate the benefits of subsidized broadband.

Clinton proposes to grow subsidies currently provided under the Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the Federal Communications Commission’s E-rate program, to grow the FCC’s Lifeline program, continue the Rural Utilities Service program for broadband, and to provide broadband grants to governments. Economist Hal Singer (not Clinton) suggests an income-based subsidy of $4.3 billion annually to induce 20 million customers currently unwilling to pay the full price for broadband to buy it. What happens if these proposals are put in place? If past experience is a guide, Clinton’s ideas will mean more failed and uncompleted projects, political favoritism, and little if any positive impact. The flaw in her plan and Singer’s plan for Lifeline-like subsidies is illustrated by the FCC’s current Lifeline program.

[Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida and serves as its director of telecommunications studies.]

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Tom Wheeler has come under increasing fire for suppressing economic analysis and being politically driven. In effect, we have not had an FCC for the past three years, at least not in the way the agency was intended to operate. So that raises the question: Do we really need the FCC? The answer is “no, but yes.”

There seem to be three reasons why we still have the FCC. One is inertia: Dissolving a federal agency is a large task and Congress often has higher priorities. Second, the FCC is valuable to businesses and interest groups that are benefitting from its activities: The recent work on network neutrality, business data services, and set-top boxes are bestowing benefits to some segments of the industry at the expense of other segments, and at the expense of customers, who ultimately bear the brunt of regulatory rent seeking. The FCC’s universal service subsidies have, for example, delivered profits to numerous telephone companies over the years. And the cottage industries formed in support of net neutrality, set-top box regulation, and universal service policies employ a large number of people. The third reason we still have an FCC appears to be that it is important to keep radio spectrum allocation independent of day-to-day political pressures.

[Jamison is director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida and serves as its director of telecommunications studies.]

[Commentary] Now that Brexit is underway, maybe we can ask the Brits to help us with some of our own independence problems. In particular, could we get some guidance on how to make the Federal Communications Commission more independent and substantive? Can we reform the FCC without losing its world-class talents? Yes. The problem appears to be largely governance.

Taking lessons from the Brits (and others), a new governance model would have a small executive team that is responsible for carrying out the work of the agency, subject to a board made up of economists, accountants, engineers, social scientists, and business persons whose professional loyalties are to their professions, not politics. As with today’s commission, the board would be held accountable by courts, administrative procedures, and congressional oversight, and members would serve staggered terms and could not be removed without cause. A key difference would be selection: Appointments would be made by a joint committee consisting of equal numbers of Republican and Democratic members of Congress, board members, and representatives of academia and business. It appears that regulation by president-appointed commissions is an idea whose time has passed in the US. If we make effective reforms, maybe the US can once again become a world leader in effective regulation.

[Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida and serves as its director of telecommunications studies.]

[Commentary] RIP, America’s robust video market. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has a plan for you and he doesn’t intend to let you refuse it. The week of Sept 5 the FCC released a fact sheet on Chairman Wheeler’s new plan to rid the world’s most vibrant video marketplace of set-top boxes, those devices that almost all cable TV customers choose to lease each month. His plan? Force creation of an app and a standard app license that would take over the video marketplace. What could be more innovative than government-directed software and business contracts?

Apps may be the future of video entertainment, but that does not mean that government should be making this choice. Often, economic regulation pits regulators against customers in determining industry direction. Only one will win: Either the customers will determine the future by deciding which products and services are worth buying, or the regulator will drive the future by coercing the industry into ignoring market signals. Given the unprecedented value customers have enjoyed from US tech and video markets, let’s hope the Wheeler-app doesn’t happen.

[Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida]

[Commentary] Hillary Clinton’s technology and innovation agenda promises to “finish the job of connecting every household in America to high-speed broadband.” How? Largely by taking money from taxpayers and funneling it to people who promise to expand broadband.

In some universe, it might be possible to make the world a better place by taking money from businesses and consumers who were using it to produce wealth and value and putting that money into something that people are otherwise unwilling to pay for. But in the world in which we actually live, Clinton’s plan is likely to waste resources and make our economy worse for the experience.

Underlying the Clinton agenda is a belief that we have too little broadband and that we find ourselves in this situation because: (1) There are barriers to competition; (2) Customers don’t know what they are missing; and (3) We are not taking account of the positive economic spillovers of broadband.

[Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida]

[Commentary] What kind of leadership does the Federal Communications Commission need?

One kind is adaptive leadership — a concept pioneered by Harvard University’s Ronald Heifetz —that helps organizations recognize and address harsh realities. Sen John Thune (R-SD) is providing adaptive leadership by pointing to failings, identifying disconnects, and showing the dangers of a continued downward slide. The other kind of leadership is that which fulfills the authority vested in the chairman. The head of any organization is expected to provide direction (which is about clarifying the organization’s purpose and role), order (which is about aligning the organization to fulfill its purpose), and protection (which is about protecting the organization from the forces that could hinder its work).

FCC Chairman Wheeler has clearly failed in providing direction because he has abdicated the agency’s regulatory role to the White House and to Democratic congresspersons. His failure to provide proper order is evidenced by the agency’s diminishing transparency. And Chairman Wheeler has also failed in providing protection. For example, at a recent commission vote on Lifeline, a telecommunications price discount plan for low-income households, Chairman Wheeler delayed the vote so that congressional Democrats could pressure Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to vote along party lines rather than align with her Republican colleagues at the commission. Enabling Democratic politicians to interfere with his fellow commissioner is a betrayal of the chairman’s leadership duties.

[Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida and serves as its director of telecommunications studies.]

[Commentary] There is much to worry about in Hillary Clinton’s technology and innovation agenda as it provides a blueprint for diminishing US leadership in tech. Here are some of the features that may sound like they promote technology and innovation, but in reality drain value from customers and industry. The Clinton plan:

• Expands handouts to political allies: It will subsidize computer science teachers, provide grants to government schools for STEM education, subsidize more job training programs, fund business incubators, continue the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), and create a $25 billion Infrastructure Bank.
• Increases government role in broadband: The plan will expand subsidies from the federal government to cities, regions, and states to invest in dark fiber, broadband in recreation centers and transportation centers, and free public WiFi. Of course these programs will be wrought with political favoritism and waste.
• Makes empty promises of less regulation: The plan says that “localities may seek” (emphasis added) to streamline permitting processes, develop infrastructure maps and pursue “dig once” policies. It also says that Clinton would “challenge state and local governments to identify, review, and reform” barriers to new infrastructure competitors.
• Promises an open Internet, but delivers a closing one: The plan supports the Obama administration’s efforts to hand over Internet governance to an entity where governments may be the most powerful stakeholders. It also strongly endorses net neutrality, which continues to grow into the major barrier to customers getting the Internet services they want.

[Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida and serves as its director of telecommunications studies]