Recent Articles

Wireless Economies of Scale at the Price of Diminished Competition

Rob Frieden
January 01, 2009 20:18

In 2001 the FCC eliminated a cap on the amount of bandwidth a single wireless carrier could control. With nothing coming close to quantifiable or empirical evidence, the Commission simply bought the assertion of incumbent carriers that the public interest would benefit when incumbent carriers can...

Do Transparency and Non-Discrimination Requirements Impose De facto Common Carriage Duties?

Rob Frieden
December 30, 2008 00:32

Birtelcom has asked whether a Network Neutrality requirement of transparency and nondiscrimination in effect imposes a common carrier responsibility on ISPs serving Goggle to provide edge caching. Fair question. As Information Service providers, not subject to Title II telecommunications service...

Fuzzy Math in Calculating the Cost and Profit in Wireless Text Messaging

Rob Frieden
December 29, 2008 14:56

The New York Times recently addressed the issue of wireless texting cost and strongly implied that carriers make a lot of money from this service that costs them little to provide. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/28digi.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss. Of course wireless carriers...

Deconstructing AT&T’s Claims About the iPhone

Rob Frieden
December 29, 2008 14:54

Unlike the other wireless carriers, which primarily use advertisements to claim how well their networks work, AT&T pitches both reliability and speed. AT&T claims to operate the nation’s fastest 3G network. See http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iPhone.jsp?WT.srch=1. The c...

Wall Street Journal 100% Record Sustained—Deliberately Getting it Wrong on Network Neutrality

Rob Frieden
December 24, 2008 14:17

Month after month the Wall Street Journal (“WSJ”) pursues what appears to be a deliberate strategy of misinformation on the issue of Network Neutrality. The latest installment appears in Dec. 23rd editorial written by Gordon Crovitz who attempts to equate Google’s enhanced use of edge caching as evi...

No Way to Put the Public Back in Public Utilities?

Rob Frieden
December 21, 2008 22:13

Several years ago many state legislatures embraced the concept that technological innovations would stimulate robust competition in previously monopolized industries such as electricity, gas and telecommunications. The legislatures so bought into the certainty of competition that laws created a...

Apple iPhone Apps Store—Refreshing Openness or Walled Garden?

Rob Frieden
December 18, 2008 13:10

Apple Computer has received high praise for the diversity of applications available for the iPhone. The company shows great willingness to accept third party software innovations. But Apple also solely decides whether to accept and make available any application. Rejected software vendors for the...

Edge Caching and Better Than Best Efforts Routing

Rob Frieden
December 16, 2008 19:45

A recent WSJ article has caused a tempest in a teapot over the possibility that standard bearers for network neutrality, such as Google, have gone over to the dark side in favor of something akin to “better than best efforts” routing. See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122929270127905065.html; Oth...

The Downsides in Maximizing Spectrum Auction Proceeds

Rob Frieden
December 12, 2008 20:59

My classical economics training suggests that when governments maximize spectrum auctions—or the award of any franchise—the nation “wins” by awarding a public resource to the party most willing and able to maximize the value reflected by the asset. Surely a venture willing to part with the most mone...

Lessons From the Hawaii Telcom Bankruptcy

Rob Frieden
December 02, 2008 14:15

Hawaii Telcom, the incumbent local exchange telephone company, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Press accounts attribute this outcome to increased competition, the company’s struggle to finance capital spending while making debt payments, a significant downturn in the economy, as well as the d...