Rob Frieden
The We Don’t Want to Pay for Universal Telecommunications Access Litigants Finally Hit Paydirt
For several years now, a well-funded litigation group has sought an appellate court decision deeming the current method of funding the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund unconstitutional. The litigants finally hit paydirt in an enbanc appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled in their favor on a 9-7 vote. The litigants ostensibly expressed concerns about constitutional rights, economic freedom, what constitutes a tax, how specific a congressional delegation of authority has to be, and the extent to which the FCC could lawfully delegate administration of
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How Much Did the U.S. Wireless Carriers “Earn” From “Location Information Aggregators”?
The Federal Communications Commission lawfully fined U.S. facilities-based wireless carriers nearly $200 million for selling highly intrusive location data about subscribers without their “opt-in” consent. In Section 222 of the Communications Act, Congress comprehensively specified how the carriers bore an affirmative duty of care not to disclose clearly defined Customer Proprietary Information (“CPNI”). The Act explicitly required the FCC, and no other agency, to protect telecommunications consumers.
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The Quickening Pace of Landline Retirement
Sooner rather than later, landline telephone service will completely transition to wireless and Internet-based calling (commonly referred to as Voice Over the Internet Protocol or "VoIP"). While the Federal Communications Commission, for over a decade, has precluded a “flash cut” service termination, I expect the timeline for copper wire service retirements to shorten.
How to Remedy Post-COVID-19 Pandemic Setbacks in Bridging the Digital Divide
How Congress, the federal Executive Branch, state and local governments, and carriers can forestall likely, measurable declines in broadband geographical penetration and subscription rates achieved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, a look at the reforms needed to make ongoing universal service subsidy programs sustainable and more effective in achieving additional progress in bridging the Digital Divide as emergency grant programs wind down.
Network Neutrality Redux and the Return of Falsehoods and Disinformation
Despite vowing to eschew involvement in the latest Network Neutrality drama, I cannot sit back and let stand the resumption of the distorted gospel preached by the anti-network neutrality crowd. This group has legitimate criticisms, many of which I have tried, via hundreds of law review pages—to analyze, and even endorse, in specific instances. Network neutrality regulation will not create a suffocating Internet rate regulation regime. The Democratic majority has clearly exempted broadband internet access from Title II common rate regulation.
The evolving 5G case study in United States unilateral spectrum planning and policy
This paper tracks increasingly aggressive initiatives by the United States government to reallocate spectrum on an expedited and unilateral basis well before conclusion of inter-governmental coordination. Rather than embrace the customary commitment to achieve consensus on global spectrum allocations at the International Telecommunication Union (“ITU”), the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has auctioned off large blocks of frequencies for the next generation (“5G”) of wireless services.
Migration From Wireless to Wired Networks During the Pandemic--It's More Than the Squint Factor
One small silver lining in the Covid-19 virulent cloud: an unsponsored and truly unbiased empirical test whether wireless broadband networks offer a direct competitive alternative to wired broadband. The answer is clear: No. Not even close. Despite all the happy talk and sponsored researcher advocacy, broadband consumers understand the financial incentive to use Wi-Fi access to wired broadband wherever available. When homebound consumers have access to wireless broadband access via their smartphones and wired broadband access via personal computers and Wi-Fi, they opt for the latte
A False All Clear Conclusion from the Chicago Tribune
Like their south side University of Chicago economists, the Editorial Board of the Tribune waxes poetic and snarky about the virtues of the marketplace and how it can solve any and all network neutrality ills. The Editorial Board dismisses a particularly egregious throttling episode as “humiliating customer service failure” for Verizon when the company’s software automatically slowed transmission speeds of California first responder handsets as they tackled life and property threatening fires. Does deliberate slowing down of transmission speed and commensurate service degradation wa
The evolving 5G case study in spectrum management and industrial policy
This paper explains why most nations refused to endorse key United States 5G spectrum allocation proposals at the International Telecommunication Union’s 2015 World Radio Conference. US representatives underestimated the time needed for consensus building, despite increasing demand for wireless video and the evolving Internet of Things.
The FCC’s 2018 Broadband Report: How Do You Politicize a Statistical Report?
[Commentary] Until recently, the Federal Communications Commission dutifully provided statistics, perhaps framed in ways to support a policy objective. But until now, not one statistical report included a partisan jab. Despite lots of blabber about empiricism and humility, someone thought it fair and balanced to couple regularly-reported statistics with an unsupported assertion that the 2015 Open Internet Order singularly caused a decline in the pace of increased subscribership and network performance during the last two bummer Obama years. In a statistical report, mandated by law, the FCC