Will network neutrality politics scuttle the FCC's upcoming incentive auction?

[Commentary] Sometime in 2015, the Federal Communications Commission plans to hold a voluntary incentive auction in which it will attempt to entice broadcasters to relinquish some of their prime spectrum for mobile broadband use. Should the FCC allow the politics of net neutrality to interfere, however, the commission could blow one of the last great opportunities both to alleviate spectrum exhaust and to make a significant contribution toward deficit reduction without raising taxes. Both the White House and the FCC are threatening to subject the mobile broadband industry to stringent net neutrality rules -- or, worse, to reclassify mobile broadband as a Title II common carrier telecommunications service. Should they make good on their threat, such heavy-handed regulation would make the broadcast spectrum less valuable and, in turn, depress much-needed auction revenues, throwing the success of the auction into doubt.

[Ford is the chief economist of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]