About Scott Cleland
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You are hereRegulationImplications of DOJ-Google/ITA Antitrust SettlementSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-04-08 17:28There are many major going-forward implications resulting from the DOJ's latest antitrust enforcement action against Google -- this time to mitigate the anti-competitive effects of the proposed Google-ITA transaction.
Summary of Implications:
AT&T - T-Mobile: Opponents Have Competition Double StandardSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2011-03-30 10:18Why is there a selective political fixation on AT&T-T-Mobile's ~43% combined market share when so many related markets are dramatically more concentrated, less competitive, or even monopolized?
When the FCC does the "data-driven analysis" that it claims to value, it will discover a blatant competition double standard where broadband critics gerrymander and torture broadband market share statistics to raise the specter of a broadband "opoly" -- to justify broadband regulation.
AT&T - T-Mobile: A Solution to Many ProblemsSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-03-28 18:38Despite Sprint and Clearwire opposing the proposed AT&T-T-Mobile acquisition, expect the DOJ and FCC to approve it, because the DOJ appreciates the facts of vibrant wireless competition and because the FCC will come to appreciate how the transaction actually helps solve many of the FCC's highest priority problems. As a veteran analyst, who has closely covered most all of the roughly two dozen major communications mergers since the 1996 Telecom Act, it is easy to cut through the critics' standard, hyperbole and histrionics -- that they use to attack every major communications merger -- to get to the rub of this matter.
Like I blogged that the Comcast-NBCU merger would get approval when the hyperbole and histrionics were similarly over the top and not credible, this acquisition ultimately will gain government approval.
FCC is Losing the Wireless FutureSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-03-14 16:35It will be surprising if the Republican FCC Commissioners and a bipartisan majority of Congress do not oppose the FCC's unwarranted war on wireless competition policy.
The linchpin of the FCC's de-competition policy to restore the FCC to its pre-1996 monopoly regulation glory days, and to put the FCC in more control of the communications sector going forward, is to politically define away the existence of "effective competition," in order to justify FCC regulation of the mobile Internet.
FCC Out-Europes Europe on Net Neutrality -- Why?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-03-01 14:52"The Net Neutrality Debate in Europe is Over" per an excellent commentary by Ben Rooney in WSJ TechEurope.
For those who follow history, it is truly ironic, surprising, and just plain bizarre that Europe is more pro-competition on Internet policy than the U.S. FCC. How can this be? To understand this wierdness, look at this remarkable development through the lens of industrial policy. I posit the reason for this European policy outcome is the fact that Europe does not have a Silicon Valley lobby -- with an aggressive corporate welfare agenda seeking government special treatment, regulation of their competitors, and implicit bandwidth subsidies -- like the U.S. does. The stark and ironic contrast between the FCC's European-style, interventionist, regulatory approach, and Europe's more American, non-interventionist, competitive approach can only be explained by the presence of the potent lobbying force of U.S. industrial policy national champions (Silicon Valley -- Google, eBay, Amazon, IAC) in the U.S. -- and the absence of European national champions seeking net neutrality in Europe. Net Neutrality Update: Level 3, "revolution," & Supreme CourtSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-02-18 13:50There were lots of important net neutrality developments worthy of comment this week:
First, I would like to applaud the FCC Chairman for making it clear before Congress that the FCC's Open Internet order "doesn't change anything to existing peering arrangements" and that the FCC "hopes those parties settle and resolve it."
5 Questions for the FCC on Net NeutralitySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2011-02-15 19:07Here are five questions that would be helpful to have the FCC answer concerning net neutrality.
Google: "Thinking big with a gig" or "Doing small at a crawl?"Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2011-02-11 18:01It has now been over a year since Google promised with great fanfare that it would "make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone" by offering "ultra-high-speed broadband networks... with 1 gigabit per second fiber-to-the-home connections... at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people." What is taking so long for Google to do this?
Will the FCC Lose the Future?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2011-02-10 11:41Do the actions of the FCC match the FCC's words of support for the President's commitment to the "least burdensome tools to achieve regulatory ends?"
There are three disturbing trends at the FCC: preservationism, pessimism and silo-ism -- that all strongly indicate that the FCC's trajectory is more geared toward losing the future than winning the future. I. FCC Preservationism (Shackling the future with the mindset, approaches and legacy networks/regulations of the past.) Most of the last year the FCC has been obsessed with FCC historical preservation, i.e. strongly considering restoring the FCC to its past glory days with new Title II common carrier regulation of the Internet, but then settling on a 1934 era interpretation of the FCC's Title I authority at its most boundless.
Google: 'Settlements 'R' Us?' Is Google Choosing Regulation?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2011-02-07 10:40Has Google shifted its legal strategy from its scorched earth legal tactics to more brand-friendly 'Settlements 'R' Us' political tactics?
I. There is emerging evidence that Google may be in settlement court-regulation-submission mode. Pages |