The Empirical Case Against Asymmetric Regulation of Broadband Internet Access
The Empirical Case Against Asymmetric Regulation of Broadband Internet Access
复制标题
反对宽带互联网接入不对称监管的实证案例
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.302876
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发表时间：
2003
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Hal J. Singer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
J. Sidak;R. Crandall;Hal J. Singer
美国对宽带互联网接入服务的提供实行非对称监管。有线电视系统营办商在销售有线调制解调器服务方面不受规管。相比之下，提供数字用户线路（DSL）服务的现有本地交换运营商（ILEC）面临价格监管以及在批发（或非捆绑）基础上向竞争者提供其宽带网络的使用的义务，使得他们可以在零售市场上向消费者提供与ILEC自己的零售产品竞争的DSL服务。不对称监管的社会成本现在已经很熟悉了。这种管制并不会导致放松管制，而是导致一种持久的有管理的竞争，这种竞争的管理远比对垄断服务提供者的传统管制复杂得多。非对称监管的替代方案是对称监管或对称自由监管。假设后一种选择更可取，将采取哪些实际步骤来废除对ILEC提供宽带互联网接入的不对称监管？联邦通信委员会（FCC）可以取消该机构自己以前实施的不对称监管。联邦通信委员会可以宣布，宽带互联网接入服务不是一种电信服务，不受适用于ILEC的许多条例的约束，而是一种信息服务，不受此类条例的约束。在相当大的争议中，联邦通信委员会于2002年2月邀请公众对这种重新分类发表意见。或者，联邦通信委员会可以利用其在《通信法》第10条下的权力，不对ILEC提供的宽带互联网接入进行监管。第三种，也是更渐进的方法，是由FCC宣布ILEC在提供宽带互联网接入等先进服务方面不占主导地位。非主导承运人不受价格上限或回报率管制，也不承担提交运价表和通过提交成本数据确定运价合理性的义务。确定一家运营商是否为非支配性运营商所需的经济分析，如果不是全部的话，也有许多与联邦通信委员会的决定有关，即是否不对某一特定服务进行管制，或者是否将有关服务重新归类为不受管制的服务。虽然公平竞争委员会直到1996年才根据第10条获得不受管制的权力，但该机构对非支配地位申请的评估时间较长，因此在这一问题上提炼出了一套法律。在这篇文章中，我们评估的情况下，对宽带互联网接入的不对称监管，通过透镜的FCC的方法来决定申请非支配地位。我们研究的经济证据相关的ILEC是否在提供大众市场的宽带服务，其中最熟悉的是DSL服务的非主导地位。我们使用嵌套logit离散选择模型来产生DSL服务需求的自有价格弹性和电缆调制解调器服务需求相对于DSL服务的交叉价格弹性的计量经济学估计。我们的研究结果表明，DSL服务的需求是价格弹性，DSL和电缆调制解调器是在同一个产品市场，DSL供应商缺乏市场力量。FCC将通过裁定ILEC在大众市场宽带服务市场中不占主导地位来促进公共利益。
The United States has asymmetric regulation of the provision of broadband Internet access service. A cable television system operator is not regulated in its sale of cable modem service. In contrast, an incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) that offers digital subscriber line (DSL) service faces price regulation as well as the obligation to offer competitors the use of its broadband network on a wholesale (or, unbundled) basis so that they may offer, in the retail market, DSL services that compete with the ILEC's own retail offering to consumers. The social costs of asymmetric regulation are by now familiar. Such regulation leads not to deregulation, but to an enduring managed competition far more complex to administer than traditional regulation of a monopoly service provider ever was. The alternative to asymmetric regulation is either symmetric regulation or symmetric freedom from regulation. Assuming that the latter alternative is preferred, what actual steps would be taken to abolish asymmetric regulation of ILEC provision of broadband Internet access? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could remove asymmetric regulation that the agency itself previously imposed. The FCC could declare that broadband Internet access service is not a telecommunications service, subject to numerous regulations applicable to ILECs, but rather an information service, which is free of such regulations. Amid considerable controversy, the FCC invited public comment on such a reclassification in February 2002. Or the FCC could use its power under section 10 of the Communications Act to forbear from regulating ILEC provision of broadband Internet access. A third, and more incremental, approach would be for the FCC to declare ILECs nondominant in the provision of advanced services, such as broadband Internet access. Non-dominant carriers are exempt from price-cap or rate-of-return regulation, as well as the obligation to file tariffs and to establish the reasonableness of those tariffs through the submission of cost data. Much, if not all, of the economic analysis required to determine whether a carrier is nondominant also would be relevant to the FCC's decision whether to forbear from regulating a particular service or whether to reclassify the service in question as unregulated. Although the FCC did not receive its authority under section 10 to forbear from regulation until 1996, the agency has evaluated petitions for nondominance for a longer time and consequently has distilled a body of law on the subject. In this Article, we evaluate the case against asymmetric regulation of broadband Internet access through the lens of the FCC's approach to deciding petitions for non-dominance. We examine the economic evidence relevant to whether ILECs are non-dominant in the provision of mass-market broadband services, the most familiar of which is DSL service. We use a nested-logit discrete-choice model to produce econometric estimates of the own-price elasticity of demand for DSL service and the cross-price elasticity of demand for cable modem service with respect to DSL service. Our findings suggest that demand for DSL service is price-elastic, that DSL and cable modems are in the same product market, and that DSL providers lack market power. The FCC would advance the public interest by ruling that the ILECs are non-dominant in the mass-market broadband services market.