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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Evolution Of Internet Service Providers From Partners To Adversaries: Tracking Shifts In Interconnection Goals And Strategies In The Internet’S Fifth Generation, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
At the Internet’s inception, carriers providing the bit switching and transmission function largely embraced expanding connections and users as a primary service goal. These ventures refrained from metering traffic and charging for carriage based on the assumption that traffic volumes roughly matched, or that traffic measurement was not worth the bother in light of external funding from government grants. Most Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) bartered network access through a process known as peering in lieu of metering traffic and billing for network use. As governments removed subsidies and commercial carriers invested substantial funds to build larger and faster networks, identifying …
Déjà Vu All Over Again: Questions And A Few Suggestions On How The Fcc Can Lawfully Regulate Internet Access, Rob Frieden
Déjà Vu All Over Again: Questions And A Few Suggestions On How The Fcc Can Lawfully Regulate Internet Access, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
This paper will examine the FCC’s March, 2015 Open Internet Order with an eye to assessing whether and how the Commission can successfully defend its decision in an appellate court. On two prior occasions, the FCC failed to convince a reviewing court that proposed regulatory safeguards do not unlawfully impose common carrier duties on private carriers. The Commission now has opted to reclassify broadband Internet access as common carriage, a decision sure to trigger a third court appeal. The FCC Open Internet Order offers several, possibly contradictory, justifications for its decision to apply Title II of the Communications Act, subject …
Overestimating Wireless Demand: Policy And Investment Implications Of Upward Bias In Mobile Data Forecasts, J. Armand Musey Cfa, Aalok Mehta
Overestimating Wireless Demand: Policy And Investment Implications Of Upward Bias In Mobile Data Forecasts, J. Armand Musey Cfa, Aalok Mehta
J. Armand Musey, CFA
In this paper, we present evidence of persistent errors in projections of wireless demand and examine the implications for wireless policy and investment. Mobile demand projections are relied upon in academic and government research and used for critically important telecommunications policy decisions, both domestically and internationally. The Federal Communications Commission, for example, used such projections to estimate a 275 MHz spectrum shortage by 2014 and featured such estimates in the U.S. National Broadband Plan as evidence for allocating additional spectrum for cellular services. The International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector endorsed in 2006 an estimate of a 1,280- to 1,720-MHz spectrum …
Right-Sizing Spectrum Auction Licenses: The Case For Smaller Geographic License Areas In The Tv Broadcast Incentive Auction, William H. Lehr Phd, J. Armand Musey Cfa
Right-Sizing Spectrum Auction Licenses: The Case For Smaller Geographic License Areas In The Tv Broadcast Incentive Auction, William H. Lehr Phd, J. Armand Musey Cfa
J. Armand Musey, CFA
The wireless sector is a key contributor to economic activity and growth. Over the next several years, wireless service providers are expected to invest $25 to $53 billion upgrading and expanding their networks to deploy 4G mobile broadband across the nation. All told, wireless broadband investment and the services and innovation supported by such investment are expected to add between $259 and $355 billion to US GDP each year through 2017. The Federal Communications Commission ("Commission" or "FCC") is currently designing the largest ever auction of terrestrial wireless spectrum, currently planned for late 2014 (the "Incentive Auction"). The purpose is …
A Public Interest Perspective On Local Number Portability: Consumers, Competition And Other Risks, J. Armand Musey Cfa, Michael Calabrese
A Public Interest Perspective On Local Number Portability: Consumers, Competition And Other Risks, J. Armand Musey Cfa, Michael Calabrese
J. Armand Musey, CFA
Before the Commission finalizes the selection of a vendor for the Local Number Portability Administrator (“LNPA”) contract, the Commission should take this opportunity to reconsider the future role of the number portability system and of the LNPA in relation to market competition, public safety and the IP technology transition. The functionality of today’s LNP platform extends well beyond providing routine number porting services between telecom carriers. It has evolved into a significant component in the greater ecosystem of telecommunications competition, public safety and technological evolution. As a result, any changes to the LNPA now will have broader and evolving public …
The Costs And Benefits Of Regulatory Intervention In Internet Service Provider Interconnection Disputes: Lessons From Broadcaster-Cable Retransmission Consent Negotiations, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
This paper considers what limited roles the FCC may lawfully assume to ensure timely and fair interconnection and compensation agreements in the Internet ecosystem. The paper examines the FCC’s limited role in broadcaster-cable television retransmission consent negotiations with an eye toward assessing the applicability of this model. The FCC explicitly states that it lacks jurisdiction to prescribe terms, or to mandate binding arbitration. However, it recently interpreted its statutory authority to ensure “good faith” negotiations as allowing it to constrain broadcaster negotiating leverage by prohibiting multiple operators, having the largest market share, from joining in collective negotiations with cable operators. …
Drones, Henry H. Perritt Jr., Eliot O. Sprague
Drones, Henry H. Perritt Jr., Eliot O. Sprague
Henry H. Perritt, Jr.
Federal And State Authority For Network Neutrality And Broadband Regulation, Tejas N. Narechania
Federal And State Authority For Network Neutrality And Broadband Regulation, Tejas N. Narechania
Tejas N. Narechania
For the second time in less than four years, the D.C. Circuit has rebuffed the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt at imposing network neutrality rules on internet traffic. But in so doing, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the FCC’s theory of jurisdiction based on section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This ruling has the significant effect of transforming a questionable source of authority into what may become the Commission’s most significant font of regulatory power.
Surprisingly, section 706 seems to give the Commission the power to implement a slightly revised set of network neutrality rules. By narrowing the scope of …
The Eye Of The Beholder: Participation And Impact In Telecommunications (De)Regulation, Dorit Reiss
The Eye Of The Beholder: Participation And Impact In Telecommunications (De)Regulation, Dorit Reiss
Dorit R. Reiss
The California Public Utilities Commission addressed both pricing deregulation and universal service in telecommunications during the last decade. Both decisions had a similar cast of characters, and similarly elaborate processes. In relation to price deregulation, the utilities positions were accepted on every issue addressed; in relation to universal service, consumer organizations’ positions were accepted in about 60% of the issues. This article tells the story of how those decisions were made, and examines the reasons for the difference in impact. The article examines and reject an explanation of capture; accepts in part a focus on the influence of the commissioner …
Net Bias And The Treatment Of “Mission-Critical” Bits, Rob Frieden
Net Bias And The Treatment Of “Mission-Critical” Bits, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
The Internet increasingly provides an alternative distribution medium for video and other types of high value, bandwidth intensive content. Many consumers have become “technology agnostic” about what kind of wireline or wireless medium provides service. However, they expect carriers to offer access anytime, anywhere, via any device and in any distribution format. These early adopters of new technologies and alternatives to “legacy” media have no patience with the concept of “appointment television” that limits access to a specific time, on a particular channel and in a single presentation format. This paper assesses whether and how Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) can …
Sender Side Transmission Rules For The Internet, Tejas N. Narechania, Tim Wu
Sender Side Transmission Rules For The Internet, Tejas N. Narechania, Tim Wu
Tejas N. Narechania
Visual Gut Punch: Persuasion, Emotion, And The Constitutional Meaning Of Graphic Disclosure, Ellen P. Goodman
Visual Gut Punch: Persuasion, Emotion, And The Constitutional Meaning Of Graphic Disclosure, Ellen P. Goodman
ellen p. goodman
The ability of government to “nudge” with information mandates, or merely to inform consumers of risks, is circumscribed by First Amendment interests that have been poorly articulated in the relevant law and commentary. New graphic cigarette warning labels supplied courts with the first opportunity to assess the informational interests attending novel forms of product disclosures. The D.C. Circuit enjoined them as unconstitutional, compelled by a narrative that the graphic labels converted government from objective informer to ideological persuader, shouting its warning to manipulate consumer decisions. This interpretation will leave little room for graphic disclosure and is already being used to …
“Smut And Nothing But”: The Fcc, Indecency, And Regulatory Transformations In The Shadows, Lili Levi
“Smut And Nothing But”: The Fcc, Indecency, And Regulatory Transformations In The Shadows, Lili Levi
Lili Levi
For almost a century, American broadcasting has received a lesser degree of constitutional protection than the print medium. Although many of the FCC’s regulations in “the public interest” have been upheld against First Amendment challenge on the ground that broadcasting is exceptional, the traditional reasons given for such exceptionalism – scarcity and pervasiveness – have become increasingly careworn. Fighting that consensus, the FCC has aggressively pursued the regulation of indecency on radio and television since 2003. When the FCC’s enhanced indecency prohibitions swept up U2 front-man Bono’s fleeting expletive on a music awards show, broadcasters finally thought they had found …
The Implausibility Of Secrecy, Mark Fenster
The Implausibility Of Secrecy, Mark Fenster
Mark Fenster
Government secrecy frequently fails. Despite the executive branch’s obsessive hoarding of certain kinds of documents and its constitutional authority to do so, recent high-profile events—among them the WikiLeaks episode, the Obama administration’s celebrated leak prosecutions, and the widespread disclosure by high-level officials of flattering confidential information to sympathetic reporters—undercut the image of a state that can classify and control its information. The effort to control government information requires human, bureaucratic, technological, and textual mechanisms that regularly founder or collapse in an administrative state, sometimes immediately and sometimes after an interval. Leaks, mistakes, open sources—each of these constitutes a path out …
Brief For Cato Institute Et Al. As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioners, City Of Arlington Texas Et Al. V. Federal Communications Commission Et Al., Daniel A. Lyons, Jonathon H. Adler, Roderick M. Hills
Brief For Cato Institute Et Al. As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioners, City Of Arlington Texas Et Al. V. Federal Communications Commission Et Al., Daniel A. Lyons, Jonathon H. Adler, Roderick M. Hills
Daniel Lyons
No abstract provided.
After Privacy: The Rise Of Facebook, The Fall Of Wikileaks, And Singapore’S Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Simon Chesterman
After Privacy: The Rise Of Facebook, The Fall Of Wikileaks, And Singapore’S Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Simon Chesterman
Simon Chesterman
This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared — exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks — and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal regime has also been undermined by the lack of a strong theory of what privacy is. There is more promise in the narrower field of data protection. Singapore, which does not recognise a right to privacy, has positioned itself as an e-commerce hub but had no …
Disclosure's Effects: Wikileaks And Transparency, Mark Fenster
Disclosure's Effects: Wikileaks And Transparency, Mark Fenster
Mark Fenster
From Bad To Worst: Assessing The Long Term Consequences Of Four Very Bad Fcc Decisions, Rob M. Frieden
From Bad To Worst: Assessing The Long Term Consequences Of Four Very Bad Fcc Decisions, Rob M. Frieden
Rob Frieden
Far too many major decisions of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) rely on flawed assumptions about the current and future telecommunications marketplace. If the FCC incorrectly overstates the current state of competition, it risks exacerbating its mistake going forward if actual competition proves unsustainable, or lackluster. In many key decisions the FCC cited robust competition in current and future markets as the basis for decisions that relax restrictions on incumbents, abandon strategies for promoting competition, or apply statutory definitions of services that trigger limited government oversight. The Commission ignores the secondary and tertiary consequences of decisions that deprive it of …
Invoking And Avoiding The First Amendment: How Internet Service Providers Leverage Their Status As Both Content Creators And Neutral Conduits, Rob M. Frieden
Invoking And Avoiding The First Amendment: How Internet Service Providers Leverage Their Status As Both Content Creators And Neutral Conduits, Rob M. Frieden
Rob Frieden
Much of the policy debate and scholarly literature on network neutrality has addressed whether the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has statutory authority to require Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) to operate in a nondiscriminatory manner. Such analysis largely focuses on questions about jurisdiction, the scope of lawful regulation, and the balance of power between stakeholders, generally adverse to government oversight, and government agencies, apparently willing to overcome the same inclination. The public policy debate primarily considers micro-level issues, without much consideration of broader concerns such as First Amendment values. While professing to support marketplace resource allocation and a regulation-free Internet, the …
Note: The Lesson Of Lopez: The Political Dynamics Of Federalism's Political Safeguards, Daniel Lyons
Note: The Lesson Of Lopez: The Political Dynamics Of Federalism's Political Safeguards, Daniel Lyons
Daniel Lyons
No abstract provided.
In Wake Of Deadly Tsunami Comes Dangerous Litigation, Daniel Lyons
In Wake Of Deadly Tsunami Comes Dangerous Litigation, Daniel Lyons
Daniel Lyons
No abstract provided.
Case Comment On F. Hoffman-Laroche Ltd. V. Empagran S.A. In 'The Supreme Court 2003 Term: Leading Cases. Iii Federal Statutes And Regulations: E. Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvement Act', Daniel Lyons
Daniel Lyons
No abstract provided.
Dept. Of Labor Increases Union Financial Reporting Requirements, Daniel Lyons
Dept. Of Labor Increases Union Financial Reporting Requirements, Daniel Lyons
Daniel Lyons
No abstract provided.