Digital Crossroads

An incisive and thoroughly updated guide to U.S. telecommunications regulation—what it can teach us about competition policy for Big Tech. In Digital Crossroads, two experts on telecommunications and tech policy offer a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the regulation of competition in the U.S. telecommunications industry. The first two editions of Digital Crossroads (also MIT Press) became essential guides for policymakers, lawyers, scholars, and students in a fast-moving and complex policy field. In this third edition, the authors have updated the book to include a wide range of industry developments that have reshaped telecommunications policy since the second edition’s publication in 2013. These include the rise and fall of common carrier regulation for broadband ISPs; further consolidation within the wireless industry; redoubled efforts to free up more spectrum for commercial uses; the increasing competitive significance of low-Earth-orbiting satellite broadband; and seismic shifts in broadband subsidy initiatives. The book also includes a new final chapter that explores what the history of telecommunications regulation can teach us about competition policy for today’s largest digital platforms. As the authors explain, many proposals for regulating tech markets bear a strong resemblance to the regulatory measures that U.S. policymakers have taken, with varying degrees of success, to promote greater competition within the telecommunications industry over the past 50 years. The authors conclude that the lessons learned from those regulatory experiments should inform today’s competition policy for Big Tech.