TELECOMMUNICATIONS LAW AND REGULATION
Communications 597B/CCLaw 997A
Syllabus (Spring, 2008)
Instructor:
Professor Rob Frieden
102 Carnegie Building
863-7996; E-mail:
Class Hours: Tues.
Office Hours: Monday
Course Materials:
The readings for the class are available as World Wide Web links and portions of Benjamin, Lichtman, Shelanski and Weiser, TELECOMMUNICATIONS LAW AND POLICY
(2nd
ed. 2006).
Overview
Careers in telecommunications and information processing require interdisciplinary skills including the ability to integrate an understanding of law with policy making components that include economics, technology management, business imperatives, the public interest and politics. This course aims to present, investigate, and debate ongoing or anticipated conflicts in specific telecommunications law and policy issues. The resulting confrontations may stem from technological innovation, real or perceived changes in the marketplace, or the imperatives of prevailing regulatory, political and economic philosophies. Conflict resolution often results from persuasive advocacy, coalition building and accommodation of outsiders with new perspectives or entrepreneurial visions, rather than solely applying legal precedent. But at other times, even entrepreneurs, who have devised a superior product or service, fail to achieve market success, because the regulatory process hinders, or obstructs commerce.
Course Format
We will examine and debate a series of spectrum
management, broadcasting, cable television, common carrier, Internet, resource
allocation, and technology planning issues.
Students will prepare for each class by reading the assigned materials
and generally taking responsibility to understand or pose questions about the
positions of all major constituencies or coalitions involved. I value class participation very highly. You can bring computers into the classroom
for purposes of taking notes only.
Final Exam or Paper
The final, “open-book” exam
for this course will examine issues we have covered extensively in class. During the exam, you may access any written
materials, notes, books and outlines.
However you may not use any electronic device including cellphones. You may
use a computer as
a word processor, but for no other purpose.
In lieu of a final exam, you can prepare and present in class a paper (20-25 pages) that examines a telecommunications or information policy issue of your choice. You must review the recent scholarly and trade literature on the chosen paper topic. Your paper should demonstrate a clear understanding of the primary issues at stake, and it should go further by suggesting how to resolve problems. In preparing to write this kind of paper you should expand your search to include case law, journal articles and World Wide Web sites.
The litmus test of a good paper will be whether it makes a contribution to the body of knowledge on a topic, rather than merely distill what is already available. Please type your papers. You should comply with the following schedule to ensure ample time to prepare a worthy project:
Fifth week of classes: Propose a topic in a one paragraph abstract.
Ninth week of classes: Deliver to me an outline and bibliography of primary source materials you will use.
Class One and Two: Introduction to Telecom Law and Policy
Assignment:
TELECOMMUNICATIONS LAW AND POLICY [hereinafter TLP] pp. 14-15, 30-37, 437-450, 198-200, 703-711 and 905-917.
We begin the course by examining the legal and regulatory classification of all the different media and services covered in the course: broadcasting, cable television, print, telephone and the Internet. Traditionally laws and regulations, along with their interpretation, have used a “silo” based approach that assumes near mutually exclusivity and applies different regulations. For example broadcast regulations impact content, industry structural and business while telephone, common carrier regulation primarily addresses price and availability of service. Throughout the course we will need to keep in mind the impact of technological and market convergence on service-specific laws and regulations.
Recommended
Kevin Werbach, Breaking The Ice: Rethinking
Telecommunications Law for the Digital Age, 4 J. TELECOMM.
& HIGH TECH. L. 59 (Fall, 2005).
For background on the impact of converging telecommunications and information processing technologies see, e.g., International Telecommunication Union, ITU Internet Report 2006, digital.life; portions available at: http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/digitalife/index.html.
Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts and Stephen Wolff, A Brief History of the Internet, Internet Society; available at: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml.
Christopher S. Yoo, The Rise
and Demise of the Technology-Specific Approach to the First Amendment, 91 GEO. L.J. 245 (2003).
Class Three: The Role of the
Federal Communications Commission and Its Intellectual/Policy Drivers
Assignment:
TLP pp. 51-66
Recommended
Rob Frieden, The FCC’s Name Game: How Shifting Regulatory
Classifications Affect Competition, 19 BERKELEY TECH. L.J., No. 4,
1275-1314 (Fall, 2004); Adjusting the
Horizontal and Vertical in Telecommunications Regulation: A Comparison of the
Traditional and a New Layered Approach, 55 FED. COMM.
L.J. No. 2, 207-250 (March, 2003).
Richard
S. Whitt, A Horizontal Leap
Forward: Formulating A New Communications Public Policy Framework Based on the
Network Layers Model, 56 FED. COMM. L.J. 587 (May, 2004).
Phillip
J. Weiser, Toward a Next Generation
Regulatory Strategy, 35 LOY. U. CHI. L.J. 41 (2003).
Kevin Werbach,
A Layers Model for Internet Policy, 1
J. TELECOM. & HIGH TECH. L., 37 (2002).
John T. Nakahata,
Regulating Information Platforms: The
Challenge of Rewriting Regulation From the Bottom Up, 1 J. ON TELECOM. & HIGH TECH. L., 95 (2002).
Pillip J. Weiser, Law and Information Platforms, J. ON TELECOM. & HIGH TECH. L., 1 (2002).
Yochai Benkler, Some Economics of Wireless Communications, 16 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 25, (2002).
Class Four: Spectrum
Management (technological strategies)
Assignments: TLP pp. 69-77; 83-105
Recommended
Jerry Brito, The
Charles
Jackson, Spread Spectrum Is Good--But It
Does Not Obsolete NBC v.
Paul J. Kolodzy, Dynamic Spectrum Policies: Promises and
Challenges, 12 COMMLAW CONSPECTUS 147 (2004).
Thomas
W. Hazlett and Matthew L. Spitzer, Advanced Wireless Technologies and Public
Policy, 79
Classes Five/Six: Spectrum Management (administrative strategies)
Assignments: TLP pp. 67-69, 77-83, 130-142, 143-156, 169-186
Recommended
New
America Foundation, THE CARTOON GUIDE TO FEDERAL SPECTRUM POLICY(2006);
available at:
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_cartoon_guide_to_federal_spectrum_policy.
Philip
J. Weiser and Dale
N. Hatfield, Policing the Spectrum Commons, 74 FORDHAM L. REV. 663 (Nov.,
2005).
Thomas W. Hazlett,
Spectrum
Tragedies, 22 YALE J. ON REG. 242 (Summer, 2005).
Kevin Werbach, Supercommons: Toward a
Unified Theory of Wireless Communication, 82 TEX. L.
REV. 863 (March, 2004).
Jeremiah
Johnston, The
Patrick
S. Ryan, Application of the Public-Trust Doctrine and
Principles of Natural Resource Management
to Electromagnetic Spectrum, 10 Mich. Telecomm. Tech. L. Rev. 285 (2004).
Stuart
Minor Benjamin, Spectrum Abundance and the
Choice Between Private and Public Control, 78
N.Y.U. L. REV. 2007 (Dec., 2003).
Stuart Minor Benjamin, The Logic of Scarcity: Idle
Spectrum as a First Amendment Violation, 52 Duke L.J. 1 (2002).
Class Seven: Broadcast Regulation
(economic and structural)
Assignments: TLP pp. 336-345, 389-434, 643-653, TLP 2007 suppl. 1-6, and/or skim: http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-132A1.doc
(¶¶ 1-29)
Recommended
Sean
Michael McGuire, Media Influence and the Modern American
Democracy: Why the First Amendment Compels Regulation of Media Ownership, 4
CARDOZO PUB. L. POL'Y & ETHICS J. 689 (Aug.,
2006).
John F.
Sturm, Time for Change on Media
Cross-Ownership Regulation, 57 FED. COMM. L.J. 201 (2005).
C. Edwin
Baker, Media Concentration: Giving up on
Democracy, 54 FLA. L. REV. 839, (2002).
Benjamin
J. Bates & Todd Chambers, The Economic
Basis for Radio Deregulation, 12 J. of
Media Econ., 19 (2000).
Mark S. Fowler & Daniel L. Brenner, A Marketplace Approach to Broadcast Regulation, 60 TEX. L. REV. 207 (1982).
Classes Eight/Nine: Broadcast
Regulation (content)
Assignments: TLP pp. 200-208, 208-217, 227-237, 254-266, 266-285,
298-300
Recommended
Sandra Braman, The Ideal v. the Real in
Media Localism: Regulatory Implications, 12 COMM. L. & POL'Y 231 (Summer,
2007).
Philip
M. Napoli and Sheea T. Sybblis, Access to
Audiences as a First Amendment Right: Its Relevance and Implications for
Electronic Media Policy, 12 VA. J.L. & TECH 1
(Winter, 2007).
Adam Thierer, Why Regulate Broadcasting? Toward a Consistent First Amendment Standard for the Information
Age, 15 COMMLAW CONSPECTUS 431(2007).
Joshua
B. Gordon,
(Sep., 2006).
Ellen P.
Goodman, Media Policy Out of the Box:
Content Abundance, Attention Scarcity, and the Failures of Digital Markets,
19
Cass R. Sunstein, Television
and the Public Interest, 88 Cal. L.
Rev. 499 (2000).
Reed E. Hundt, The Public's Airwaves: What Does the Public
Interest Require of Television Broadcasters?, 45 Duke L.J. 1089 (1996).
Classes Ten/Eleven: Emerging
Video Marketplace (Direct Broadcast Satellite, Cable Television, IPTV)
Assignments: TLP pp. 247-254, 437-463, 498-511, 463-472, 476-483, 490-497, 514-530, 531-547; http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-276576A1.doc (update with order when relased); TLP Suppl.-44, or skim: http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-180A1.doc; 569-585; http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-276575A1.doc (update with order when released)
Recommended
Brian T. Yeh, Congressional
Research Service, CRS Report to Congress, Copyright
Protection of Digital Television: The Broadcast Video
Flag (
Matthew
S. Schwartz, A Decent Proposal: The
Constitutionality of Indecency Regulation on Cable and Direct Broadcast
Satellite Services, 13 RICH. J.L. & TECH. 17 (Spr., 2007).
Robert
W. Crandall, J. Gregory Sidak,
and Hal J. Singer, Does Video Delivered Over a Telephone
Network Require a Cable Franchise?, 59 FED. COMM. L.J. 251
(March, 2007).
William
D. Rahm, Watching
Over the Web: A Substantive Equality Regime for Broadband Applications, 24
YALE J. on REG. 1 (Winter, 2007).
Aurele Danoff, “Raised
Eyebrows” Over Satellite Radio: Has
Thomas
W. Hazlett, Shedding Tiers for a la Carte? An Economic
Analysis of Cable TV Pricing, 5 J. TELECOMM. &
HIGH TECH. L. 253 (Fall, 2006).
Nissa Laughner and Justin Brown, Cable
Operators' Fifth Amendment Claims Applied to Digital Must-Carry, 58 FED. COMM. L.J. 281 (Apr.,
2006).
Joseph Farrell & Phillip J. Weiser, Modularity, Vertical Integration, and Open Access Policies, 17 HARV. J.L. & TECH. 85 (2003).
Class Twelve: Telephony Regulation--Tech primer, history, AT&T
Divestiture
Assignments: TLP pp. 703-711, 714-724, 724-739
Recommended
Paul Joskow & Roger Noll, The
Gary J. Guzzi, Breaking Up
the Local Telephone Monopolies: The Local Competition Provisions of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, 39 B.C. L. REV. 151 (1997).
Class Thirteen: Telephony Regulation—Rate regulation, incentive
regulation and universal service
Assignments: TLP pp. 747-763, 763-769
Recommended
Howard
A. Shelanski, Adjusting
Regulation to Competition: Toward a New Model for
Jonathan E. Nuechterlein & Philip J. Weiser,
DIGITAL CROSSROADS 99-108 (2005).
Mark Lemley & David McGowan, Legal Implications of Network Economic Effects, 86 CAL. L. REV. 479 (1998).
Classes Fourteen/Fifteen: Telephony Regulation-- Telecommunications
Act of 1996—initiatives and failures, promoting local exchange competition,
interconnection and network unbundling
Assignments: TLP pp. 771-781, 787-789, 799-820, 820-825, 828-842, 842-848,
Recommended
Gerald
W. Brock, Interconnection Policy and
Technological Progress, 58 FED. COMM. L.J. 445 (June, 2006).
Robert
C. Atkinson, Telecom Regulation for the
21st Century: Avoiding Gridlock, Adapting to Change, 4 J. TELECOMM. & HIGH TECH. L. 379 (Spr., 2006).
Adam Candeub, Network Interconnection and Takings, 54
SYR, L. REV. 369 (2004).
James Speta, Handicapping the Race for the Last Mile?: A Critique of Open Access Rules for Broadband Platforms, 17 YALE J. REG. 39 (2000).
Class Sixteen: Telephony Regulation—Universal Service reform,
impact of Voice over the Internet Protocol telephony
Assignments: TLP pp. 863-881, TLP suppl. 99-106 or http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200706/06-1276a.pdf.
Recommended
For technical background on how
VoIP works see Intel, White Paper, IP Telephony Basics, available at: http://www.intel.com/network/csp/resources/white_papers/4070web.htm;
Susan Spradley
and Alan Stoddard, Tutorial on Technical
Challenges Associated with the Evolution to VoIP, Power Point Presentation,
available at: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/tutorial/9-22-03_voip-final_slides_only.ppt.
Rob Frieden, Killing With Kindness: Fatal Flaws in the $6.5 Billion Universal
Service Funding
Allen S.
Hammond, IV, Universal Service: Problems, Solutions, and Responsive Policies, 57 FED. COMM. L.J. 187 (March,
2005).
Krishna P. Jayakar and Harmeet Sawhney, Universal service: beyond established practice to possibility space, 28 TELECOM. POL’Y., Nos. 3-4, 339 (2004).
Patricia M. Worthy,
Racial Minorities and the Quest to Narrow the Digital Divide: Redefining the
Concept of ‘Universal Service,’ 26
Milton L. Mueller, Jr., Universal Service:
Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American
Telephone System (1997).
Class Seventeen: Internet Regulation—which regulatory model
applies?
Assignments: TLP pp. 927-935
Recommended
Jonathan Zittrain, A History of Online Gatekeeping,
19 HARV. J.L. & TECH. 253 (Spring,
2006).
Kevin Werbach, The Federal Computer Commission, 84 N.C. L. REV. 1 (Dec., 2005).
Jonathan Zittrain,
Internet Points of Control, 44 B.C.
L. REV. 653 (2003).
James B. Speta,
FCC Authority to Regulate the Internet:
Creating It and Limiting It, 35 LOY. U. L.J., 15,
31 (Fall, 2003).
Rob Frieden, Revenge of the Bellheads: How the Netheads Lost Control of the Internet,
26 TELECOM. POL’Y,
No. 6, 125-144 (Sep./Oct. 2002).
Class Eighteen: Advanced Services Regulation—Title I regulation of
information services, regulatory asymmetry, further problems with silo
regulation, impact of technological and marketplace convergence
Assignments: TLP pp. 955-972, 984-1007
Recommended
Ryan K. Mullady, Regulatory
Disparity: The Constitutional Implications of Communications Regulations That
Prevent Competitive Neutrality, 2 U.
International Telecommunication
Union, What Rules for IP-enabled NGN?, Workshop (
Rob Frieden, What Do Pizza Delivery and Information
Services Have in Common? Lessons From Recent Judicial and
Regulatory Struggles with Convergence, 32
J. Steven Rich, Brand X and the Wirline
Broadband Report and Order: The Beginning of the End of the Distinction Between
Title I and Title II Services, 58 FED. COMM. L.J.,
No. 2, 221 (April, 2006).
Robert Cannon, The Legacy of the Federal Communications
Commission’s Computer Inquiries, 55 FED. COMM. L.J. 167
(2003).
Class Nineteen: Network Neutrality
Assignments: TLP pp. 1012-1028, TLP suppl. pp. 79-87 and/or review: http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-31A1.doc;
Recommended
Rob
Frieden, Network Neutrality or Bias?--Handicapping the Odds for a Tiered and Branded
Internet, 29
Rob Frieden, Internet 3.0: Identifying Problems and Solutions to the Network Neutrality Debate, 1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS, 461 (2007); available at: http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/160/86.
Brett Frischmann & Barbara van Schewick,
Yoo’s Frame and What It Ignores: Network Neutrality and the Economics of an Information Superhighway, 47 JURIMETRICS
J. (forthcoming); available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1014691.
Barbara
van Schewick, Towards
an Economic Framework for Network Neutrality Regulation, 5 J. ON TELECOM. & HIGH TECH. L.
(forthcoming 2007).
T. Randolph Beard, George S.
Ford, Thomas M. Koutsky & Lawrence J. Spiwak, Network
Neutrality and Industry Structure, 29
Edward W. Felten, Nuts
And Bolts Of Network Neutrality, Practicing Law Institute, 24th Annual
Institute on Telecommunications Policy & Regulation, 887 PLI/PAT 317 (Dec.
2006).
Bill D.
Herman, Opening Bottlenecks: On Behalf Of
Mandated Network Neutrality, 59 FED. COMM. L.J.
103 (Dec., 2006).
J. Gregory Sidak, A
Consumer-Welfare Approach to Network Neutrality Regulation of the Internet,
2 J. COMPETITION L. & ECON. 349 (Sep. 2006).
Christopher S. Yoo, Network Neutrality and the Economics of
Congestion, 94 GEO. L.J. 1847 (2006).
Craig McTaggart, Was The
Internet Ever Neutral?, paper presented at the 34th Research Conference on
Communication, Information and Internet Policy, George Mason University School
of Law, Arlington, Virginia (rev. Sep. 30, 2006); available at: http://web.si.umich.edu/tprc/papers/2006/593/mctaggart-tprc06rev.pdf.
Christopher S. Yoo, Beyond Network Neutrality, 19 HARV. J. L. & TECH. 1, (2005).
Tim Wu, Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination, 2 J. TELECOM & HIGH TECH L. 141 (2005); available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=388863.
Adam Thierer,
Are ‘Dumb Pipe’ Mandates Smart Public
Policy? Vertical Integration, Net Neutrality, and the
Network Layers Model, 3 J. TELECOM. & HIGH TECH. L.
275 (2005).
Christopher S. Yoo, Would Mandating Broadband Network Neutrality Help or Hurt Competition? A Comment on the
End-to-End Debate, 3 J. on TELECOM. & HIGH TECH. L.
23, 51 (2004).
Mark A. Lemley and
Class Twenty: Voice over the Internet Protocol
Assignments: TLP pp. 1028-1047, TLP suppl. pp. 87-93 or review: http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/07/03/051069P.pdf.
Recommended
Mark C.
Del Bianco, Voices
Past: The Present and Future of VoIP Regulation, 14 COMMLAW CONSPECTUS 365 (2006).
Amy L. Leisinger, If It Looks Like a Duck: The Need for Regulatory Parity in VoIP Telephony, 45 WASHBURN L.J. 585
(Spring, 2006).
Jerry Ellig and Alastair Walling, Regulatory Status of VoIP
in the Post-Brand X World, 23 SANTA CLARA COMPUTER & HIGH TECH. L.J. 89
(No. 2006)
Robert
Cannon, State Regulatory
Approaches to VoIP: Policy, Implementation, and Outcome, 57 FED. COMM. L.J. 479 (May, 2005).
Sunny
Lu, Note, Cellco Partnership v. FCC & Vonage Holdings Corp. v..
R. Alex DuFour, Voice Over Internet Protocol: Ending
Uncertainty and Promoting Innovation Through a
Regulatory Framework, 13 COMLCON 471 (2005).
Stephen
E. Blythe, The Regulation of
Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol in the United States, the European Union, and the
United Kingdom, 5 J. HIGH
TECH. L. 161(2005).
Konrad L. Trope, Voice Over Internet Protocol: The
Revolution in
Chérie R. Kiser
&Angela F. Collins, Regulation on the Horizon: Are Regulators Poised to Address the Status
of IP Telephony?, 11 COMMLAW
CONSPECTUS 19 (2003).
Robert M. Frieden, Dialing
for Dollars: Should the FCC Regulate Internet Telephony?, 23
Class Twenty-one:
Telecommunications Merger Review
Assignments: TLP pp. 1055-1059, 1060-1078; TLP suppl. 107-114; or
AT&T-BellSouth merger conditions http://www.cybertelecom.org/docs/attbsconditions.htm
Recommended
Jim Chen, The Echoes of Forgotten Footfalls: Telecommunications Mergers at the Dawn of
the Digital Millennium, 43
Class Twenty-two: The Role (if any) of Antitrust Enforcement in
Telecommunications
Assignments: TLP pp. 1091-1096,
Recommended
Adam Candeub, Trinko and Re-Grounding the Refusal to Deal
Doctrine, 66 U. PITT. L. REV. 821 (Summer, 2005).
Howard
A. Shelanski, Antitrust
Law as Mass Media Regulation: Can Merger Standards Protect The Public Interest?, 94 CAL. L.
REV. 371 (March, 2006).
Joseph Farrell & Philip
J. Weiser, Modularity, Vertical Integration, and Open Access
Policies: Towards a Convergence of Antitrust and Regulation in the Internet Age,
17 HARV. L. & TECH. 85 (2003).
Student Paper Presentations
Suggested topics:
Wireless Net Neutrality See Tim Wu,
Wireless Carterfone, 1 INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, 389 (2007); Robert W.
Hahn, Robert E. Litan and Hal J. Singer, The Economics of “Wireless Net Neutrality”, 3 J. COMPETITION L.
& ECON. 399 (Sep. 2007).
Unlicensed use of DTV Spectrum “White Spaces”
Municipal Wi-Fi versus Market-based Delivery See
Hannibal Travis, WI-FI
Everywhere: Universal Broadband Access as Antitrust and Telecommunications
Policy, 55 AM. U. L. REV. 1697 (Aug. 2006).
Review and Wrap Up