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 Universitys 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> --------------------------------------------------------------- WWWhatsup NYC http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com --------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.isoc-ny.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
