1. Monthly archive
  2. March 2018

March 2018

The battle for digital supremacy

“Desigend by Apple in California. Assembled in China”. For the past decade the words embossed on the back of iPhones have served as shorthand for the technological bargain between the world’s two biggest economies: America supplies the brains and China the brawn. Not any more. China’s world-class tech giants, Alibaba and Tencent, have market values of around $500 billion, rivalling Facebook’s. China has the largest online-payments market. Its equipment is being exported across the world. It has the fastest supercomputer.

Initial Estimates Show Digital Economy Accounted for 6.5 Percent of GDP in 2016

The Bureau of Economic Analysis released, for the first time, preliminary statistics and an accompanying report exploring the size and growth of the digital economy. Goods and services that are primarily digital accounted for 6.5 percent of the US economy, or $1.2 trillion, in 2016, after a decade of growing faster than the US economy overall, BEA’s research shows. 

AT&T’s FiberTower deal raises questions about the value of 5G spectrum

[Commentary] A large and growing group of voices, including those from legislators, journalists, FiberTower shareholders and trade associations, argues that AT&T’s purchase of FiberTower’s millimeter wave licenses is a sweetheart deal that undervalues that spectrum—spectrum those in the industry believe is critical to the rollout of 5G.  Most recently, Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, claimed that the agency signed off on AT&T’s FiberTower purchase without holding an open debate about the transaction.

Verizon says FCC should adopt speed measurement methodology before CAF auction begins

Verizon says that as it mulls its involvement in the Federal Communications Commission’s upcoming $2 billion Connect America Fund auction this July, the regulator needs to provide more guidance on how it will determine whether a CAF-supported service meets speed requirements.  In an FCC filing, Verizon said that potential bidders need to know two main elements:  how the FCC will measure speed and whether the tested service is compliant, i.e., the statistical standards that the speed measurements will be required to meet.

U.S. judge says AT&T-Time Warner merger trial may last 8 weeks

US District Judge Richard Leon said a trial to decide if AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner is legal under US antitrust law may last six to eight weeks, significantly longer than previously forecast. At a pre-trial hearing, Judge Leon said he will hear up to two days of motions before hearing opening arguments on March 21. Lawyers for the government and both companies did not comment on Leon’s estimate on the length of the trial; they had previously suggested it would last three weeks.

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