Spectrum Giveaway Makes $200 Billion Phone Bill Ripoff Look Small

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: September 6, 2007 6:48:11 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Spectrum Giveaway Makes $200 Billion Phone  
Bill Ripoff Look Small

September 05, 2007

Spectrum Giveaway Makes $200 Billion Phone Bill Ripoff Look Small

<http://blog.isp-planet.com/blog/archives/2007/09/spectrum_giveaw.html>

Just last month, we wrote about how PBS finally noticed that the  
phone companies ripped off state governments (and the taxpayers who  
fund them) to the tune of about $200 billion over the past 20 years  
(see PBS Notices the Bells' $200 Billion Ripoff).

Today, we received in the mail an even larger claim against the phone  
companies: that the Federal Government has given away $480 billion in  
spectrum. We'll have more on the report later this month on ISP- 
Planet, but wanted to point out the report to you in case you'd like  
to read it. It's from the magnificent New America Foundation, a  
friend of competition (with an impressive Leadership Council that  
includes Schmidt and Soros). New America is already well-known to  
WISPA members for its work on opening spectrum and opposing giveaways.

Two things make the work of the New America Foundation so useful to  
people like me. First of all, its work, though academic in depth and  
loaded with detail, is nevertheless written in language that is easy  
to understand. Second, the Foundation presents a point of view rarely  
heard in the regulatorium.

In this report, The Art of Spectrum Lobbying: America's $480 Billion  
Spectrum Giveaway, How it Happened, and How to Prevent it from  
Recurring, the Foundation's wireless expert, J.H Snider, explores not  
only who owns what and how they came to own it so cheaply (think CBS/ 
Viacom, Clear Channel, Fox, and Univision). . .

Snider also writes about the lobbying strategies that enabled  
spectrum owners to get regulators to ponder false choices instead of  
real options. Snider writes about the process, common in many areas,  
in which regulators adopt the point of view of the corporation being  
regulated instead of looking out for what's best for America's citizens.

Snider writes well. In fact, he's just left the New America  
Foundation and is now Affiliated Researcher at Columbia University’s  
Institute for Tele-Information, where he's writing a book.

Here's an example of clear writing:

On page 24 of the report, for example, Snider uses a graphic (not  
reproduced here) to compare spectrum lobbying with the abuse of land  
grants. The abuse of land grants is a simple, four step process:

1) The government owns undeveloped land.

2) The government grants limited grazing rights to cattle owners at  
favorable, sub-market rates.

3) The rights holder lobbies the government for extended rights that  
include mining and oil development.

4) The rights holder lobbies for rights to build on the land, arguing  
that this meets public needs as well as paying the rights holder a  
return on investment.

Note, of course, that while the rights holder is complaining about  
the expense of developing the land, the rights to use the land were  
originally granted to the cow company at low rates. The company is  
complaining about costs; its startup costs and continuing profits  
have come out of taxpayers' pockets.

Which is exactly what's happening with spectrum rights (and phone  
bills, too). We're getting ripped off. I'm glad to see groups like  
the New America Foundation (and Teletruth) gather the data. People  
need to know, and the federal government is not going to publish  
press releases or detailed studies of its failures to prevent  
lobbyists from earning key media companies hundreds of billions of  
dollars in federal gifts.

NAF Report can be found at: <http://www.newamerica.net/publications/ 
policy/art_spectrum_lobbying>



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