During a Senate antitrust review Wednesday, Senate antitrust committee chairman Herb Kohl (D-WI) said the following: “Having won the battle for competition by blocking last year’s AT&T/T-Mobile merger, are we now in danger of losing the war?” Mr. Kohl asked.

That’s the problem, Senator Kohl. Had you, your congressional colleagues, the FCC, and DOJ not looked at the AT&T/T-Mobile deal from the standpoint as a war against “the big companies”, you wouldn’t have AT&T and Verizon buying spectrum from cable. We should be mindful of the corners we back industry into with poor public policy.

The Wall Street Journal has an informative piece on efforts carriers like Verizon and AT&T are making to get more capacity out of the current spectrum they hold. You can see the article here.

I like that the article mentioned efforts to squeeze out capacity in urban areas given that minority populations are more concentrated in these areas, thus increasing their ability to stay connected.

Does the word “communications” or “telecommunications” mean anything anymore? Communications refers to the act of imparting or interchanging thoughts, opinions, or information by signs, writing, or speech. A communication may be a document or message imparting news, views, or information.

If I talk to my son, I’m communicating (or trying to. Kids are hard headed.). If I call him on his cell phone, we are still communicating since the only thing happening is that electrons are moving up and down a wire and the message isn’t being changed by the phone company (But as parents we know the message is being changed in our kids’ heads…).

The reason I’m pondering the definition is because I’d love to see Apple, Google, or Facebook make a play for a wireless or even a wireline company. I don’t want to see them get bogged down by 20th century notions of what communications is, however. The FCC and a bunch of state regulatory commissions would love to get their hands on a piece of Apple’s, Google’s or Facebook’s cash flow.

With people using their smart phones as miniature and mobile information access terminals (I avoid using the term computer or phone when I can), maybe some type of separations cost scheme is needed, much like the separations mechanism used by the FCC and the states to share access revenues. That would really give Apple, Google, or Facebook an advantage by reducing their cost of entry into the wireless market while giving AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile a run for their money.

I expect, given their truly nationwide network that AT&T and Verizon would do well. Deadweight companies like Sprint and T-Mobile would probably go the away like the wind, given their networks are not as large or as fast.

Let’s face it. Apple, Google, and Facebook are media companies. It’s only logical that they would want to secure the distributional channels for the information that they want to share, namely our information. It would be like AMC Studios owning movie theatres. They produce the flick, they sell the flick.

Can FCC follow policy that would keep them out of the way of a potential mega deal?

HR 3630, the payroll tax extension, passed the House by a vote of 293-132 and the Senate by a vote of 60-36. The measure now goes to President Obama for his signature. While the bill lets AT&T and Verizon bid on broadcast television spectrum given up voluntarily, the FCC will have flexibility to add terms and condition to spectrum obtained by the two largest carriers.

A number of small carriers have sent a letter to Congress requesting that the Federal Communications Commission be given flexibility to set restrictions on who may bid for spectrum during voluntary auctions. Among the wireless carriers signing the letter were Sprint, T-Mobile USA, and C-spire.

Didn’t take T-Mobile long to take the money and run.

The carriers argue that competition would be limited unless the Federal Communications Commission is granted flexibility to restrict access to the auction by America’s two largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon. AT&T’s vice-president for legislative affairs, Jim Cicconi, raised the concern that restrictions on who can access the auction cannot be described as competitive.

I agree with Mr. Cicconi viewpoint. Can you really call a process competitive when the agency responsible for access to spectrum blatantly wishes to establish bottlenecks for those companies willing and able to provide wireless services? Companies, large and small, should have access to the process. Let the highest bidder for a respective swath of spectrum receives it.

Sprint and these other carriers had years of opportunity to grow their networks; merge if they had to; in order to compete with larger carriers. By restricting the carriers with the larger economies of scale from participating will only mean unserved and underserved communities may be seeing increased prices, more dropped calls, or worse yet, no service.