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SelectedWorks

2008

FCC

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Creating Effective Broadband Network Regulation, Daniel L. Brenner Dec 2008

Creating Effective Broadband Network Regulation, Daniel L. Brenner

Daniel L. Brenner

ABSTRACT: The Internet is central to the business and pastimes of Americans. Calls for increased regulation are ongoing, inevitable, and often justified. But calls for “network neutrality” or “nondiscrimination” assume with little hesitation federal agency competence to give predictable and accurate meaning to these terms and create regulations to implement them. This article’s chief contribution to Internet policy debate is to focus attention on the likelihood of successful FCC Internet regulation -- a key assumption of some advocates. The article analyzes three characteristics that hobble the FCC, the likeliest federal agency to provide prescriptive rules. First, the record for the …


Jurisdiction As Competition Promotion: A Unified Theory Of The Fcc's Ancillary Jurisdiction, John F. Blevins Aug 2008

Jurisdiction As Competition Promotion: A Unified Theory Of The Fcc's Ancillary Jurisdiction, John F. Blevins

John F. Blevins

The FCC’s “ancillary jurisdiction” refers to the agency’s residual authority to regulate matters over which it lacks explicit statutory authority under the Communications Act of 1934. Because many of today’s most controversial and consequential policy debates involve new technologies not explicitly covered by that statute, the scope of the FCC’s ancillary jurisdiction has taken on a critical new importance in recent years. In particular, the future of federal Internet policy depends on resolving the questions surrounding ancillary jurisdiction. In this article, I provide a new theory of the FCC’s ancillary jurisdiction, arguing that it is best understood as an authority …