We have heard over and over again how regulatory uncertainty can impede decision making on the part of business. The same holds true for the communications industry. In an article published in the National Review Online, Kevin Hassett provided an example of the dampening effect on growth ill-advised policy can have.

Mr. Hassett referred to the Federal Communications Commission’s finding that transferring licenses from T-Mobile was not in the public interest and that such a transfer would have a negative impact on competition. What Mr. Hassett points out is that decisions like the one by the FCC would have a negative impact on the nation’s growth. He wanted us to envision the collective negative impact these types of decisions would have on an industry that accounts for one-sixth of the economy.

Private investment, such as the investment that would have been initiated by the merger, is at the base of any economic recovery. As much as we may talk about government making investments, it was private investment that drove growth during six years of the Clinton Administration and five years of the Bush II Administration.

On the issue of competition, the FCC’s decision to deny the license transfers was based in part on giving smaller carriers the opportunity to either enter or, in the case of Sprint, stay in the market. Smaller, regional carriers don’t have the economies of scale or other capital necessary to provide the same level of national output of wireless services, even with access to additional spectrum. Just ask T-Mobile.

If smaller carriers are not increasing their services, and AT&T and Verizon are not allowed to increase their services due to a lack of spectrum, these carriers will raise their rates in order to regulate the increase in consumer demand for wireless services. Reduced output and increased prices are characteristics of a monopoly, the very scenario the FCC allegedly wanted to avoid. Consumers get shafted on both ends.

This is the irony of over regulation. Not only is capital investment impeded, but the regulatory agency creates a non-competitive market.

We are in the silly season of American politics. The presumptive nominee for the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts Governor Willard Romney may be facing incumbent President Barack Obama in the November general election. Mr. Romney comes from the tech-prevalent state of Massachusetts, yet has failed to leverage in his campaign any experience he has with the benefits of technology in his home state.

It’s a missed opportunity. According to the CTIA, wireless data traffic has increased 123% over last year. In 2010 there were 62 million mobile-to-mobile devices worldwide. By 2020, that number, according to data cited by CTIA, is expected to top 16 billion.

CTIA also addressed the economy, concluding that for every dollar invested in wireless broadband, $7-$10 dollars would be added to our gross domestic product. Along with growth in GDP would come an additional 771,000 jobs added for the purpose of deploying 4G networks. These jobs would pay on average 50% more than jobs in other production industries.

Talking economic growth without mentioning the nation’s biggest influence on economic growth is like bringing a gun to a gun fight without any bullets.

Grover Norquist co-authored a piece criticizing the FCC’s foot-dragging on the issue of spectrum access. As a case study, Mr. Norquist refers to the challenges LightSquared is facing from other agencies while the FCC apparently is looking the other way. According to Mr. Norquist, the FCC is pulling a John Kerry double take: I was for LightSquared building a $14 billion 4G network before I was against LightSquared building a $14 billion network.

I did appreciate Mr. Norquist’s take on the FCC’s push for rules that would basically allow the agency to choose to whom spectrum will go and to decide who gets to bid on it in the first place. What the FCC is signaling is not competitive bidding. The FCC should not be picking winners and losers. The Japanese did something similar in the 1990s; picking the industries they felt should survive.

Have you heard of the Lost Decade? This type of economic strategy didn’t help Japan pull out of its economic and financial doldrums. Why should we expect picking favorites to work here in the U.S.?

Last September, I attended the annual National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) conference in Washington, DC. The keynote speaker at the luncheon was Neil Golden, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer for McDonald’s USA. During his speech, he shared an important observation. McDonald’s had determined in its marketing research that minority consumers enjoyed games of chance while white consumers enjoyed games of strategy. Mr. Golden’s point in sharing this information was to explain the success of some of its urban promotions including its popular scratch off games.

I think this view can be applied, to a very limited extent, to how we as minorities view the use of technology. From computers to cell phones, to high speed connections, these technologies were introduced to make work more efficient and profitable. Their entertainment value would come later as they were offered to the masses. While I wouldn’t describe technology’s use by the mass consumer market as chance, the early use was strategic.

I’m also suspect of a recent description of minorities as the demographic that makes technology popular. This was the premise of a recent article in NewsOne by Johan Thomas. Mr. Thomas set out to describe why blacks make technology popular. His rationale was that we adopted technology such as pagers as social tools, turning them into fashion accessories, and experimented with them while innovating their use and looks.

I believe that we popularize new technology that is affordable; I’d dare say technology that supports cheap entertainment. We won’t take a chance on broadband because, while it can be used to deliver entertainment, that delivery system is far from cheap. Yet we see all around us the application of broadband technology to productive use.

Just look at your online media companies in which I would include Facebook and Google. Look at how other going concerns use broadband for research and transmitting data. We have to ask ourselves are we taking a chance missing out on profit and employment by not being strategic in how we get broadband into more hands and how we become more effective with it.

Phillip Humm laid out his argument for court approval of the AT&T/T-Mobile USA transaction in a short piece in the Seattle Times. He made the arguments about customer service quality improvements and the efficient acquisition of spectrum that the transaction would provide. These arguments weren’t necessarily the highlights, however.

What struck me as important was that an independent going concern such as T-Mobile has to go through all these hoops in order to maximize shareholder wealth. T-Mobile’s parent, Deutsche Telekom, made an independent decision to sell its American subsidiary to an American company.

Deutsche has determined that it is time to pull up stakes in the U.S. due to financial and competitive reasons in Europe. One only has to listen to the business news to see what may be at the heart of Deutsche’s financial and competitive concerns. The company has made a rational decision to pursue a time honored method of exiting the U.S. market, a sale. Yet, policymakers appear to be saying, please don’t go.

Is this the appropriate institutional response to the decision made by a market participant? What returns accrue to Deutsche’s shareholders from policymakers telling the company that the government cannot accept conditions of a sale that were negotiated between two autonomous and independent market participants?