Communication Cleanup

A freedom of information act

Peter Huber from the February 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Authorize any common carrier to transmit anyone's content, including its own. Leave copyright laws in place. Authorize any broadcaster to carry anyone's content, not just its own. Legalize "time brokering," under which broadcasters sell air time in small increments to willing buyers.

Let broadcasters refuse to broadcast whatever they don't like, including political messages. Let cable companies refuse to transport whatever they don't like, including broadcast channels. Abolish the abominable Copyright Royalty Tribunal and all the compulsory license laws it administers. Place cable companies under traditional copyright laws once again. If they want to retransmit anyone else's transmissions, make them buy them in the open market.

Prices. Large parts of the telecosm are already competitive today, or will be very soon. Price regulation here is a destructive anachronism. So...

Abolish all remaining price regulation of wireless services (there isn't much left anyway). Abolish all price regulation of interstate wireline services, like ATT's and MCI's (there isn't much left there, either). Whether or not the long-distance market is adequately competitive, regulation no longer does any visible good. Outlaw the filing of tariffs for any of these services. The tariffs in these markets just facilitate price fixing.

Abolish all price regulation of video services, whether supplied by cable, telephone, direct broadcast satellite, SMATV, VCR, disk, or other technology. Outlaw the filing of tariffs for these services, too.

Authorize every common carrier to meet or beat prices offered by competitors, even if that results in what would otherwise be an (unlawful) "discriminatory" price.

Universal Service. When all else fails, this is always the last-ditch excuse for regulating what should be let alone. So...

Abolish all state and federal laws that impose service obligations on new and nondominant entrants into any market. Promote universal telecom service the same way we promote universal hamburgers: by open entry and free competition.

Free Speech. Abolish any law that passes First Amendment muster only on the theory that airwaves are somehow "scarcer" than print, or that wires are "natural monopolies," or that electronic media are inherently different and less deserving of protection. The only real scarcity in the business is a creation of government itself. The answer to government scarcity is market plenty.

Peter Huber is a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a columnist for Forbes, and serves Of Counsel to Kellogg, Huber, Hansen & Todd. He is the author, most recently, of Orwell's Revenge: The 1984 Palimpsest(Free Press). He has done legal work and market research for regional Bell companies and other providers of telecom services.

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