Wireless regulation is a temporary state of affairs. Some years from now there will be very few, if any, wireless rules. This is not a bold prediction. It is a foregone conclusion based on a confluence of economic, technological and political forces that have only gained in strength since 1993, when Congress pre-empted most state regulation of wireless carriers.
First, working backward, the political case for wireless deregulation in coming years will become more persuasive as policy-makers come under increased criticism for the continued lack of local residential competition promised by the ’96 telecom act.
To escape the wrath of consumers and their inside-the-Beltway advocates, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission will look to wireless technology-mobile and fixed-for political cover.
In the global arena, U.S. telecom policy-makers will grow tired and embarrassed of reading another news story of European and Asian wireless superiority.
Wireless rules-one by one-will go by the wayside. And those rules that remain intact likely will be wireless-friendly. Deregulation will not happen tomorrow, or even the next day. But, most surely, it will happen. Talk of FCC reform is no more than code for industry deregulation.
To date, the competitive wireless industry has not fared well in getting the FCC to forbear from enforcing federal regulations. But this will change. The burden will shift from wireless carriers having to prove that regulations are unnecessary to federal policy-makers having to justify their continued oversight.
Mobile telephony is the key.
The mobile phone is at once a utility-an alternative for basic landline telco service-and a wildly popular consumer electronics product that has merged with the Internet to help drive e-commerce in the New Economy. It’s no accident that mobile-phone mergers are among the priciest on earth. Smart business people have sized up the value-present and future-of wireless telecom.
Moreover, macroeconomics work in favor of wireless deregulation in an age when high-tech accounts for more and more economic growth. Not coincidentally, high-tech political contributions are growing as well.
Elected officials and federal regulators increasingly will be under pressure to remove any barrier to the kind of creative destruction that keeps America high-tech on the cutting edge. Witness the competition between Republicans, who control Congress, and Democrats, who want it back, to win over the digital gods of Silicon Valley.
Indeed, the technological transformation of our day is also a political transformation. High-tech is king; political decisions affecting everything from visas to taxes are skewed toward digital.
The only thing standing in the way are the trial lawyers. Whether it’s securities litigation or privacy litigation or consumer-fraud litigation or even health litigation, the lawyers will be there. It’s the brave new battleground, called the marketplace.
