Skewing Incentive Auction Rules Won't Produce Real Competition, FSF Scholar Says
The FCC shouldn't make further changes to the TV incentive auction rules to spur a more-competitive auction, said Free State Foundation Visiting Fellow Gregory Vogt in a blog post Friday. “Engineering competition to satisfy government whims is not ‘competition,’ but…
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only an example of failed industrial policy,” Vogt said. “History is littered with industrial policy disasters, from 1970s price controls to crony capitalism, and, yes, even infiltrating communications markets such as failed UNE [unbundled network elements] policies and other competition-skewing policies.” In a recent blog post, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said the AWS-3 auction was a disaster for competition and the FCC should reserve 40 MHz of incentive auction spectrum in every market for competitive carriers. “Make no mistake about it, skewing auction results will not produce more competition," Vogt wrote. "It will only lower auction prices, and thus give smaller carriers an artificial cost advantage."