Ownership

C Spire and T-Mobile have been duking it out in dueling letters to the Federal Communications Commission concerning T-Mobile rural plans which, according to T-Mobile, are contingent on its planned merger with Sprint being approved by regulators. T-Mobile has said it would broadly expand fixed wireless service to rural areas if it obtains Sprint’s vast spectrum holdings.

The Federal Communications Commission told the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that it did gauge the impact of its 2017 broadcast deregulation on media ownership diversity and found it would have “no material impact.” That came in a brief to court which is hearing appeals by Prometheus and others of that media ownership deregulation, both from groups that say the FCC was too deregulatory and without properly vetting the impact on diversity, and from those that say it was not deregulatory enough because it only loosened its prohibition on owning two of the top-four stations in a ma

American technology companies today find themselves in a conundrum Oscar Wilde identified: “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” The tech companies—both networks and the platform services that ride on them—have run the table in Washington as multiple government agencies and Congress repeatedly walked away from regulatory oversight. The result has been the digital companies’ discovery of Wilde’s second tragedy. 

Growing up in Johnson County (KS), Geoffrey Starks could walk from his Leawood home to the Sprint campus in Overland Park. Starks, 39, sworn in earlier in 2019 as the newest commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, offers this piece of personal history to say that the FCC’s upcoming vote on T-Mobile’s $26 billion merger with Sprint is more than just his first big decision.

House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR) said that the goal of new internet regulation, which he says he generally supports, should be to prevent bad behavior by Internet service providers, not to re-enshrine the Title II telecommunication definition suited to monopoly telephone companies.

Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim and Federal Communications Commissioner Michael O'Rielly offered different perspectives on how the government should treat antitrust cases - especially in the media industry. Delrahim suggested that courts should "bifurcate trials," with one segment evaluating the transaction and another phase offering a remedy.

The European Commission has fined Google €1.49 billion for breaching European Union antitrust rules. Google has abused its market dominance by imposing a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites which prevented Google's rivals from placing their search adverts on these websites.

Apple announced a new initiative in support of leading nonprofit organizations in the US and Europe that offer nonpartisan, independent media literacy programs. The News Literacy Project (NLP) and Common Sense in the US and Osservatorio Permanente Giovani-Editori in Italy will each receive support from Apple to advance their efforts in empowering young people with the critical thinking skills necessary in today’s digital age.

After each misdeed becomes public, Facebook alternates between denial, hollow promises and apology campaigns. As chairman of the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, I am calling for an investigation into whether Facebook’s conduct has violated antitrust laws. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Federal Trade Commission has confirmed that it is investigating Facebook to determine whether it violated a consent order it entered into with the commission in 2011.

A Q&A with Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO).