Jon Nuechterlein and Howard Shelanski join Bilal to discuss the newly released third edition of Digital Crossroads: Telecommunications Law and Policy in the Internet Age. They trace the arc of telecom regulation from the Kingsbury Commitment through the 1996 Telecommunications Act's attempt to force competition via interconnection mandates, asset-sharing rules, and number portability. But as they explain, it was technology, not regulation, that ultimately transformed the industry: mobile buried the landline, broadband buried narrowband, and streaming buried cable, doing more to dismantle Bell-era market power than decades of asset-sharing litigation ever did. They also cover spectrum policy's quiet success story and the Universal Service Fund's looming funding crisis. They close by applying these telecom lessons—on network effects, scale economies, and vertical leveraging—to the live debate over regulating Big Tech platforms.
Jon Nuechterlein and Howard Shelanski join Bilal to discuss the newly released third edition of Digital Crossroads: Telecommunications Law and Policy in the Internet Age. They trace the arc of telecom regulation from the Kingsbury Commitment through the 1996 Telecommunications Act's attempt to force competition via interconnection mandates, asset-sharing rules, and number portability. But as they explain, it was technology, not regulation, that ultimately transformed the industry: mobile buried the landline, broadband buried narrowband, and streaming buried cable, doing more to dismantle Bell-era market power than decades of asset-sharing litigation ever did. They also cover spectrum policy's quiet success story and the Universal Service Fund's looming funding crisis. They close by applying these telecom lesson—on network effects, scale economies, and vertical leveraging—to the live debate over regulating Big Tech platforms.