dear FCC, here’s how to find $100 billion dollars
March 1st, 2010 • posts i've written
Over the weekend, Richard H. Thaler of Nudge fame, published an article in the NY Times on a proposal made to the F.C.C. by Thomas W. Hazlett, a professor at the George Mason University School of Law who was formerly the F.C.C.’s chief economist.
In his proposal, Professor Hazlett offers the US government an opportunity to generate $100 billion dollars by auctioning off the radio spectrum currently being used by over-the-air television broadcasters.
Professor Hazlett estimates that selling off this spectrum could raise at least $100 billion for the government and, more important, create roughly $1 trillion worth of value to users of the resulting services. Those services would include ultrahigh-speed wireless Internet access (including access for schools, of course) much improved cellphone coverage and fewer ugly cell towers. And they would include other new things we can’t imagine any more than we could have imagined an iPhone just 10 years ago.
The article offers up the obstacles for the proposal (what to do with the 9% of households that still get TV over air) and Professor Hazlett’s recommendations (a $300 voucher for cable or satellite per household) – all in all an interesting read for a proposal that makes so much sense it will probably be ignored.
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