I’m still waiting for my compatriot, Harold Feld, to address how the FCC should reconcile its conclusion that forbearance is never warranted for terminating monopolies with its conclusion the same year that Internet service providers are terminating monopolists with respect to Internet content providers. In the meantime, he published a blog analogizing the FCC’s decisions in its automatic roaming orders to reclassifying broadband as a Title II service while forbearing from price regulation.
While analogies are often useful, this one is flatly misleading. The FCC’s automatic roaming orders merely followed existing precedent, both with respect to their decisions regarding “classification” and their decisions regarding the application of price regulations under Title II. They didn’t classify (or reclassify) anything in the first instance or depart from the FCC’s previous approach to regulating mobile voice services under Title II or its general approach to broadband services under Titles I and III. (I know, because the FCC’s first automatic roaming order was decided while I was Wireless Bureau Chief.) Read More