Telecom Reform
The Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank, is not a governmental agency but it has had some influence on policy in the past. Note that the author of "A 10-Point Agenda for Comprehensive Telecom Reform", Adam D. Thierer, director of telecommunications studies at the Cato Institute, was a member of the Bush-Cheney FCC Transition Advisory Team.
Executive Summary:
cato.org
Changing committee chairmanships in Congress and a leadership shakeup at the Federal
Communications Commission have once again opened a window of opportunity for comprehensive
telecommunications policy reform. While new faces are taking over within Congress and at the
FCC, however, old issues continue to dominate the telecom policy landscape.
This is largely due to the fact that, when Congress last attempted to address these matters five
years ago by passing the historic Telecommunications Act of 1996, legislators intentionally
avoided providing clear deregulatory objectives for the FCC and instead delegated broad and
remarkably ambiguous authority to the agency. That left the most important deregulatory
decisions to the FCC, and, not surprisingly, the agency did a very poor job of following through with
a serious liberalization agenda.
The Telecom Act, with its backward-looking focus on correcting the market problems of a bygone
era, has been a failure. Instead of thoroughly clearing out the regulatory deadwood of the past,
legislators and regulators have engaged in an effort to rework regulatory paradigms that where
outmoded decades ago. In short, it was an analog act for an increasingly digital world. The new
leadership in Congress and the FCC should adopt a fresh approach based on deregulation and free
markets.
The full report:
cato.org
The ten points:
-repeal marketplace quarantines
-end regulatory asymmetry
-contain the forced-access virus
-pursue spectrum reform and privatization
-reform and devolve universal service and the "E-rate"
-eliminate the "public interest" standard
-end "regulatory extortion" and antitrust abuses
-end the broadcast and internet censorship crusade
-clean up the telecom industry tax mess
-undertake sweeping agency reform and craft a plan for eventual closure |
