Gutierrez: Strong demand for free money
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The TV Converter Coupon Program opened as scheduled on January 1, and is off to a great start. Americans have begun requesting coupons that will help them get the converter boxes needed for when our television signals change on February 17, 2009. With these coupons, the federal government will defray $40 of the cost of an eligible converter, which is expected to cost between $50 and $70.
The demand for coupons is strong. We’ve taken requests from every state for nearly 1.9 million coupons from more than one million households.
The demand is strong? Really? For something that’s free? You’re kidding.
Let’s see, 1.9 million coupons requested at $40 a pop is $76 million of taxpayer money out the door in just four days. As Secretary Gutierrez says, “off to a great start” indeed. At this “great” pace it’s good to know the coupon fund totals $1 billion.
What are you waiting for? Get your piece of the American dream here.
More French wireless bashing
The WSJ reports that the French government has “rejected the sole bid it had received for the so-called third-generation, or 3G license, from French Internet start-up Iliad SA, on the grounds that it didn’t meet required financial criteria.” It also says that the “failed auction for a fourth mobile-operator license could forestall new competition and keep prices at their lofty levels for consumers[.]”It seems like the French government is going to try to remove the technical roadblocks stopping the deal, and that desire for more competition is certainly gratifying. But what I’m more curious about is why there aren’t more bidders? After all the WSJ also says, “France is one of the more desirable markets in Europe for operators. Prices have remained high and competition — limited to the three operators — isn’t as brutal as elsewhere. Italy, for example, has four mobile operators and is set to roll out more.”
It wouldn’t have anything to do with forced business models, would it?
Buying or pacifying?
In a blog post entitled “Buying regulation,” Susan Crawford wonders about the legality of the FCC reserve price scheme for the 700 MHz rules. (I.e., as long as the $4.6 billion reserve price is met for the much coveted C Block, then open access rules will apply. If the reserve price isn’t met, then the rules go away.) Crawford asks,Think about it. How can the FCC condition regulations … on the payment of money? And then have the rules dissolve if it doesn’t get the money? This is such a pure quid pro quo - it’s government for sale. Completely screwy. But how do you say “completely screwy” in legalese?
Well, it is certainly a creative gambit by Kevin Martin to make Google put their money where their mouth is, and I don’t have an opinion about whether it’s technically legal. That said, I’m not sure it’s exactly a “quid pro quo.” It’s not as if the highest bidder gets their preferred rules applied to the spectrum block. One can conceive of AT&T, for example, winning the auction at a price above $4.6 billion and therefore being subject to rules it dislikes. What I think the scheme is meant to do is pacify Congress by addressing the concern that given the restrictive rules the spectrum block might fetch much less than the many billions Congress is anticipating (and probably has already spent).
According to Buinessweek, Apple has studied the possibility of joining the FCC’s auction for 700 MHz wireless spectrum. That would make less sense for Apple than for Google.
Spectrum and the definition of deregulation
Today Lawrence Lessig released the second in his series of presentations about what Congress should do on internet policy. The first installment was about orphan copyrights, and I addressed it here. Today, Lessig writes about “deregulating spectrum,” which is an apt title if by deregulating you mean regulating. Lessig likens the current command-and-control system of spectrum regulation to communism, and I think he’s right. He goes on, however, to argue that a property system is no longer the right alternative to regulation.Instead, Lessig suggests a market not in spectrum, but in devices that use free spectrum without causing interference to any other user. As he says in his presentation, this system would require “minimal rules governing the devices.” What he doesn’t say is who would set these “minimal rules” and what exactly would guarantee that these rules would remain minimal or even rational. The answer, as I explain in my new paper out this week from the Stanford Technology Law Review, is that government will set the rules, and the only tools that government has to make rules is its inefficient command-and-control processes. A “commons” model is not a third way between regulation and property, it is just another kind of regulation.
Lessig also exhibits lots of outrage at the fact that the current regulatory system is manipulated by special interests to suit their own purposes and not the interests of consumers generally. Well, how will things be any different when government goes about setting his “minimal rules”?
One last thing. I take umbrage to Lessig’s reference to those of us who support property rights in spectrum as “property-ideologues,” which I for one take as a pejorative term that implies an unthinking blind belief. He says, these are “people who I will, to be fair, refer to as ‘extremists.’” I may think that Lessig is wrong, but I don’t doubt that he’s considered empirical evidence, given lots of thought to different ideas, and come to his own conclusions for intellectually honest reasons. There can only be reasoned debate if the conversation is respectful, and I would appreciate it if Lessig showed some respect to his intellectual opponents.
Public safety doesn’t need more spectrum
Ahead of tomorrow’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on public safety communications, the Consumer Electronics Association released a report (PDF) it commissioned from Criterion Economics analyzing the Cyren Call plan. The report concludes that the Cyren Call plan would upturn Congress’s carefully crafted DTV transition scheme. It also calls into question whether the private sector would build a more expensive broadband network than it would otherwise have to in order to meet the more rigorous needs of public safety.Like I said, the study was commissioned by a special interest and it should be read in that light. (And by all means, read it yourself and make up your own mind.) However, the study does outline some basic facts that support something I’ve been saying for a long time: public safety communications does not need more spectrum, what it needs is spectrum reform. Here’s a sampling from the report: Continue reading this post »
On interoperability, is it worth implementing the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation?
Implementing the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations was the House Democrat’s top priority during their recent “first 100 hours” legislative spree. One of the recommendations addressed in the resulting H.R. 1 bill had to do with public safety communications interoperability. The 9/11 Commission found that communications between firefighters, police officers, and other emergency personnel failed that day with deadly consequences. Here is a quick analysis of H.R. 1’s interoperability provisions, as well as the Commission’s recommendation itself, in which I argue that they are both overlooking the fundamental causes of the interoperability problem.Continue reading this post »
UK: May we interest you in some spectrum?
While in this country we’re debating whether the government should hand over to a single entrepreneur 30 of the 36 MHz of prime radio spectrum slated for auction after the digital TV transition, in the UK they’re doing things a little different. According to GigaOm:British carriers might have spent over 20 billion pounds on 3G wireless auctions several years ago, but they will soon get a chance to spend even more for “the UK’s largest single release of radio spectrum”, says British regulator Ofcom. This morning Ofcom outlined a plan for wireless auctions, which will be technology agnostic, but could include spectrum for WiMAX, mobile TV, mobile broadcast and even 3G. Ofcom is asking for a consultation period until March 2007. Ofcom says the three bands that will be available are: 2010-2025 MHz, 2290-2300 MHz and 2500-2690 MHz, and a total of 215 MHz will be on the market. There will be two initial auctions which will be part of a bigger plan to sell off up to 400 MHz over the following years.
You heard right, 400 Mhz of technology agnostic spectrum. I invite my friends concerned about net neutrality to look at this. We all would like to see new competition in broadband, and spectrum reform seems to me to be the first obvious step in that direction.
Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →
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This is the personal site of Jerry Brito, a lawyer and writer in Washington, D.C. He’s an academic researcher and the creator of Unclutterer and several other blogs. More »
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