3G Delays Result in Policy Requests

There is a spate of reports out today concerning several 3G licensees’ attempts to loosen regulatory burdens associated with the required build-out of their 3G networks.

No surprise, for several reasons. The most interesting issue from my perspective as a policy-watcher is one of predictive judgments. When a regulator licenses a particular entity to use spectrum under a set of terms and conditions, and one of those terms and conditions is a generally-applicable build-out requirement, it represents the regulator’s predictive judgment about what time period balances: (i) the need to serve the public and ensure that the public good is not wasted and (ii) the need to accommodate financial and marketplace realities.

How often are those predictive judgments on target? If they are ever precisely on target, that would shock me…

This area of policy, in many respects, is unlike the ‘law’ even though regulations often have the force and effect of law. Compare the vast majority of criminal laws. We don’t really need to predict the adverse social consequences of murder or theft. However, in the area of technology policy, regulators are asked to predict the future, and calibrate incentives with imperfect information.

N.B. - my use of the word ‘public asset’ above. That’s, of course, a regulator’s most common viewpoint. There are other positions clearly staked-out that would either lean toward it being a private asset (Hazlett) or a commons resource (Lessig). Patrick Ryan addressed those issues in his March 8th post (Structure of a Spectrum Revolution).