Ownership

Around the world, governments are moving simultaneously to limit the power of tech companies with an urgency and breadth that no single industry had experienced before. Their motivation varies.

A group of leaders with direct lines to the Biden administration—including Common Sense Media’s Jim Steyer, former Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA), and former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings—is launching a commission that will assemble a “blueprint” for a comprehensive tech policy agenda under President Biden, with a focus on soliciting input from people inside as well as outside DC. There’s still a ton we don’t know about where the Biden administration will come down on issues at the heart of the tech industry, like privacy and Section 230 reform.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act, new legislation to take back control from big business and return it to the American people. Senator Hawley’s bill will crack down on mergers and acquisitions by mega-corporations and strengthen antitrust enforcement to pursue the breakup of dominant, anticompetitive firms. The bill would:

Opponents to Verizon’s planned acquisition of prepaid TracFone often cite the negative impacts they believe it will have on Lifeline subscribers and the prepaid market overall. But Verizon is pitching the transaction as a means of improving TracFone’s ability to provide Lifeline-supported services and better serve the prepaid sector. Verizon said that TracFone, as part of Verizon, will become a stronger competitor against the flanker prepaid brands of AT&T (Cricket ) and T-Mobile (Metro).

After a long pilot period, T-Mobile is making its 5G home internet service a reality. The company says 30 million homes are now eligible for the service — 10 million of which are in rural areas. The service costs $60 per month, or $65 without autopay, which is $10 more per month than when the pilot program was introduced. The service comes with no data caps, hardware rental fees, or annual contracts, and customers self-install their own equipment. T-Mobile says most customers will experience speeds of 100Mbps, and all eligible customers should see average speeds of 50Mbps.

While antitrust lawsuits and Capitol Hill hearings get headlines, Big Tech's biggest threat in Washington may come from the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC is gearing up to flex its muscle, by both enforcing current rules and trying to draft new ones.

White House officials met privately with the CEOs of trade groups representing smaller internet service providers: America's Communications Association, the Competitive Carriers Association, NTCA, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the Rural Wireless Association and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association. Although some bigger ISPs balk at Biden’s proposal, these smaller trade groups have been playing a more carefu

Dish Network sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, complaining that T-Mobile — its partner for wireless services — is rushing to shut down a network still used by millions of Dish's Boost Mobile customers. T-Mobile's purchase of Sprint was only allowed after it agreed to sell a chunk of assets to Dish, including its Boost prepaid business. Dish is highly reliant on T-Mobile for network services as it builds out its own 5G network over the next several years.

The US Supreme Court let the Federal Communications Commission ease limits on the ownership of local television and radio stations, siding with the broadcast industry and Trump-era regulators in a long-running fight. The Justices unanimously overturned an appeals court ruling that had required the FCC to first study the potential impact on female and minority ownership in the media industry. Republicans and the broadcast industry have been seeking to relax the ownership limits for decades, saying the restrictions are badly outdated.

Apparently, the Biden team is vetting Jonathan Sallet — a former top lawyer under the Obama administration and architect of net neutrality rules — for a top antitrust post. One possible job would be heading the Department of Justice’s powerful Antitrust Division. Sallet’s name has been in the mix for that post for several weeks.