{"id":1037,"date":"2019-11-07T16:02:44","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T16:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/?p=1037"},"modified":"2019-11-07T23:04:30","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T23:04:30","slug":"expanding-telecommunications-services-in-a-new-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/?p=1037","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Telecommunications Services in a New Age"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How Legal Traditions and Licensing Procedures Impact Telecommunications Industries Around the World<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Via Max Pixel<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One would expect that lawmakers rely on economic, social,\nand technical analysis to support their decisions. However, in reality\nlawmakers\u2019 decisions are often influenced by subjective considerations and\npolitics. When economic, social, and technical analysis is referred to, it is\noften presented by parties with a vested interest. This is particularly\nproblematic in the telecommunications industry where those without political\ncapital historically remain left out of the decision-making process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To address the need for reliable analysis, a group of researchers and policymakers convened at the first Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) in 1971. Continuing this tradition, the 47<\/a>th<\/a><\/sup> annual TPRC<\/a> brought together industry players, academics, and regulators from around the world. Staying true the conference\u2019s roots, many speakers presented research on the various ways radio spectrum could be better allocated<\/a> in order to address economic, educational, and other social disparities \u2013 like political participation and housing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the pleasure of presenting my research at this year\u2019s conference. Over the past two years, I built a database of the telecommunications industry\u2019s critical points of analysis, and then used those points to support the arguments put forward in my paper \u00ad\u2013 Expanding Telecommunications Services in a New Age: How Legal Traditions and Licensing Procedures Impact Telecommunications Industries Around the World<\/a><\/em>. The paper was selected as a Finalist for the conference\u2019s Student Paper Competition<\/a> and was featured in the \u201cInternational\u201d panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first became interested in the digital divide while\nworking on infrastructure improvement projects in Latin America throughout high\nschool and as an undergraduate. My hometown, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, also\nstruggled to address the digital divide, but not nearly to the same extent as\nwhat I saw on those trips. While the work I did generally aimed at improving\nessential infrastructure and economic opportunity, I noticed that many communities\nI worked in also lacked any recognizable form of telecommunications\ninfrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started travelling outside of Pennsylvania and Latin America, I realized the digital divide was a common issue that practically all countries share. This is demonstrated by the efforts of members of international organizations, such as the Global Systems Mobile Communications Associations<\/a> (GSMA) and the International Telecommunication Institute<\/a> (ITU).  It was not until I began work as a Research Assistant for Professor Dale Hatfield<\/a> that I understood how the level of economic and social development in each country, at least as it relates to telecommunications industries, is heavily influenced by decisions about how to manage and regulate radio spectrum use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two issues influence the telecommunications industry the most \u2013 the balance of power between government branches and radio spectrum licensing. So, Professor Hatfield and I agreed it would be worthwhile to research how legal traditions, like common law and civil law, and licensing procedures, like auctions and comparative hearings, influence the quality of services and prices of telecommunications providers in each country. To do this, I created two separate regression analyses<\/a>. This allowed me to measure the relative legal advantages for a civil law country as opposed to a common law country, and of using auctions as opposed to comparative hearing to assign spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the regression analyses indicated that civil law\ncountries\u2019 legal traditions give them a major advantage over common law\ncountries. This may be explained by the differences between countries in\nrespect to how power is shared between branches of government. In civil law\ncountries, decision-making authority is traditionally concentrated in the hands\nof the executive branch and agencies, often at the expense of the judiciary and\nlegislature. Alternatively, in common law countries the balance of power is\nmore evenly shared between branches. This is observed in the exercise of\njudicial review and some legislatures\u2019 ability to limit the scope of agencies\u2019 authority.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civil law countries do have at least one major advantage\nbuilt into their legal systems: they have been able to achieve much higher\nInternet access, subscription rates, and broadband speeds \u2013 all without significantly\nincreasing consumer prices. This ought to provide encouragement for regulators\nin countries that are struggling to keep up with telecommunications development\nto experiment with policies that have proven successful in civil law countries.\nIt also indicates that perhaps they should place more faith in their agencies\nto make effective radio spectrum management decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Licensing procedures also strongly influence outcomes in the telecommunications industry. The second regression analysis indicated that countries that use auctions to assign radio spectrum have delivered cellular and internet services to more people, and at lower costs, than countries that rely on comparative hearings. Interestingly, many countries still use comparative hearings to assign radio spectrum. This may be because comparative hearings, at least in theory, give the regulators conducting the hearing greater discretion in selecting the licensee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems that auctions commonly lead to positive outcomes for consumers, faster broadband speeds, and, when conducted properly, can even help introduce competition by reducing the amount of market share in the hands of the leading operators. Again, this should encourage regulators to experiment with more dynamic approaches to spectrum regulation. In the paper, I concluded that a best practice has already been established \u2013 auctions with minimum criteria for participation<\/a> and\/or buildout requirements<\/a> \u2013 and I encourage regulators to pursue that approach in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My research also helps to confirm something I suspected while travelling abroad and throughout the rural U.S. The digital divide is influenced by both physical and<\/em> political barriers<\/a>. Indeed, the regression analyses indicated that political factors play an even greater<\/em> role than several factors others have relied on to explain the observed disparities. I know this to be true because I controlled for several traditional explanations, including rural population, population density, GDP per Capita, and Corruption Indices. Yet, when compared to legal tradition and licensing procedure, these factors have only a slight, if not insignificant, impact on telecommunications outcomes. Therefore, politicians and telecommunications providers can no longer point to economic and physical variables to explain their shortcomings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken together, the research on legal tradition and\nlicensing procedure helps to explain why there are often large disparities\nbetween countries. I understand this marks a major departure from much previous\nthinking on the subject. My hope is that my research will help others to\nunderstand how legal tradition and licensing procedure can be used as mechanisms\nto better develop telecommunications markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freddy is Managing Editor of CTLJ, Volume 18 and a Research Assistant for the University of Colorado\u2019s Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship. His study and research focus on identifying legal solutions for the issues that arise out of emerging technologies and increasing access to critical technology infrastructure in underdeveloped communities.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Legal Traditions and Licensing Procedures Impact Telecommunications Industries Around the World One would expect that lawmakers rely on economic, social, and technical analysis to support their decisions. However, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1049,"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions\/1049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctlj-dev.cu.law\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}