Nine Information Economy Policy Reversals Coming to a Marketplace Near You!

Presidential elections have real impacts arriving quickly. I think the following changed policies and strategies will happen fast, because the glidepath is both well-lit and pre-planned. 

1. Low Earth Orbiting carriers, like Starlink, will qualify for universal service funding. The Federal Communications Commission, under new management, will ignore any previous qualms about Starlink’s cost, bit rate, reliability, and other shortcomings compared to terrestrial options. This means Starlink will qualify for over $800 million in universal service funding subsidies.
2. The FCC has a playbook it will follow to the letter. The Heritage Foundation has commissioned the generation of a comprehensive list of deliverables that will be implemented quickly, regardless whether President Trump has read any of Project 2025. This executive delegates large portions of governance.
3. The author of the FCC chapter, Commissioner Brendan Carr, will become Chairman.
4. Public interest regulatory requirements fade into the sunset.  Expect the FCC to remove “regulatory underbrush” that heretofore have established now minor limits on national and local market dominance. Broadcasting becomes a toaster with sound and pictures as suggested in 1981 by a former FCC Chairman, Mark Fowler.
5. Relaxed antitrust scrutiny, possibly eliminating the FCC’s review of mergers and acquisition parallel to what the Justice Department does.
6.  I expect Executive Branch agencies, including Defense, Homeland Security, NASA, Commerce, and the FAA, to lose the upper hand in spectrum sharing and relinquishment negotiations.