Economics at the FCC 2018-19: Competition, Broadband Deployment, and Transaction Review

Abstract

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is responsible for regulation in the communications marketplace and for management of the nation’s non-federal radio frequency spectrum. During the past year, Commission economists contributed to the analysis of competition in the communications marketplace as presented in the Commission’s first Communications Marketplace Report. In addition, Commission economists examined issues in the broadcast television industry and performed general and limited analyses of the effects of both national broadcast group size and local market concentration on retransmission fees. Commission economists also evaluated the current Form 477 data collection and helped to develop proposals that would improve the current data collection as well as establish a new data collection that would advance the Commission’s universal service goals. Finally, Commission economists evaluated the likely competitive effects that would be associated with the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint transaction.

Keywords: FCC, Telecommunications Policy, Communications Marketplace Report, Retransmission Fees, Broadband Deployment, Form 477, T-Mobile-Sprint Transaction, Merger

JEL Classification: L11, L14, L16, L24, L4, L5, L96