Competition/Antitrust

Europe is proposing to fund a homegrown alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink, following US threats to switch off the dominant satellite company’s broadband services in Ukraine. In a boost to the bloc’s struggling satellite operators, the European Commission’s defence white paper said that Brussels “should . . . fund Ukrainian [military] access to services that can be provided by EU-based commercial providers.” Miguel Ángel Panduro, chief executive of Spain’s Hispasat, said that Brussels had asked his company, Eutelsat, and SES to present an “inventory” of services for Ukraine.

Apple has suffered a blow in its efforts to salvage its lucrative search placement deal with Google. A new ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals affirms that Apple cannot participate in Google's upcoming antitrust hearing, which could leave a multibillion-dollar hole in Apple's balance sheet. The judges in the case say Apple simply waited too long to get involved. Google pays Apple $20 billion a year to secure placement as the default search provider in the Safari desktop and mobile browser. The antitrust penalties pending against Google would make that deal impermissible. 

The UK is on the road to having a truly competitive broadband market within six years as other providers dilute the influence of its largest player, the country’s telecommunications regulator has indicated.

President Donald Trump fired the only two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, handing the remaining Republican commissioners exclusive control over the agency that oversees antitrust and consumer protection laws and serves as the U.S. government’s primary regulator of the tech industry. FTC  Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter announced their dismissals on the social media site X, with both calling their firings illegal.

The independent inquiry group appointed for this market investigation has found that a number of markets relating to browsers on mobile devices are not working well for consumers and businesses, which is holding back innovation and could be limiting growth in the UK. Mobile browsers are apps which provide the primary gateway for consumers to access the web on their mobile devices, and hence for businesses to reach them with their content and products.

Andrew Ferguson started his legal career with such a conventional antitrust practice—defending companies facing investigations and allegations of anticompetitive conduct—that his parents joked he was a “pro-trust lawyer.” A decade later, Ferguson’s rapid ascendance through Republican circles has put him in charge of the Federal Trade Commission, where he will try to chart a new course for antitrust enforcement: mixing MAGA populism with strains of the GOP’s traditional lighter-touch approach to regulation. While Ferguson has been outspoken in criticizing his 

This paper examines the parallels between historical telecommunications regulation and current proposals for increasing competition in technology markets, focusing on three key market characteristics the sectors share: network effects, economies of scale, and switching costs. Regulators have addressed these issues in telecommunications markets through mandatory interconnection among telephone networks, compulsory asset sharing, and number portability requirements.

The advancement of digital technologies has led to the evolution of media content delivery methods. In particular, Over-The-Top (OTT) services have experienced an explosive growth in the video content industry. The skyrocketing data traffic increases the burden on ISPs’ infrastructure, and the discourse on CPs’ payment of network usage fees has emerged. It is significant to review the case of Netflix-SK Broadband in South Korea, the world’s significant legal dispute over network usage fees.

Spectrum for Broadband Competition officially launched, bringing together a coalition of industry leaders to advocate for spectrum policies that foster increased competition, consumer choice and innovation in the home broadband market. The coalition also launched its first campaign, ‘End the Cableopoly,’ highlighting the cable industry’s attempts to undermine competition from 5G home broadband by starving wireless providers of the spectrum needed to expand access and help close the digital divide. The coalition’s founding members include 5G Americas and CTIA.

In comments made to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the recent docket looking at customer service practices, the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) filed comments that said that big internet service providers (ISPs) don’t focus on customer service because they don’t have to. The CPUC said that only 26 percent of California residents have a choice between two fast ISPs.