The pending wireless spectrum deal between Verizon Wireless and a group of cable companies (the SpectrumCo deal, for short) continues to attract opprobrium from self-proclaimed consumer advocates and policy scolds.  In the latest salvo, Public Knowledge’s Harold Feld (and other critics of the deal) aren’t happy that Verizon seems to be working to appease the regulators by selling off some of its spectrum in an effort to secure approval for its deal.  Critics are surely correct that appeasement is what’s going on here—but why this merits their derision is unclear.

For starters, whatever the objections to the “divestiture,” the net effect is that Verizon will hold less spectrum than it would under the original terms of the deal and its competitors will hold more.  That this is precisely what Public Knowledge and other critics claim to want couldn’t be more clear—and thus neither is the hypocrisy of their criticism.

Note that “divestiture” is Feld’s term, and I think it’s apt, although he uses it derisively.  His derision seems to stem from his belief that it is a travesty that such a move could dare be undertaken by a party acting on its own instead of under direct diktat from the FCC (with Public Knowledge advising, of course).  Such a view—that condemns the private transfer of spectrum into the very hands Public Knowledge would most like to see holding it for the sake of securing approval for a deal that simultaneously improves Verizon’s spectrum position because it is better for the public to suffer (by Public Knowledge’s own standard) than for Verizon to benefit—seems to betray the organization’s decidedly non-public-interested motives.

But Feld amasses some more specific criticisms.  Each falls flat.

For starters, Feld claims that the spectrum licenses Verizon proposes to sell off (Lower (A and B block) 700 MHz band licenses) would just end up in AT&T’s hands—and that doesn’t further the scolds’ preferred vision of Utopia in which smaller providers end up with the spectrum (apparently “small” now includes T-Mobile and Sprint, presumably because they are fair-weather allies in this fight).  And why will the spectrum inevitably end up in AT&T’s hands?  Writes Feld:

AT&T just has too many advantages to reasonably expect someone else to get the licenses. For starters, AT&T has deeper pockets and can get more financing on better terms. But even more importantly, AT&T has a network plan based on the Lower 700 MHz A &B Block licenses it acquired in auction 2008 (and from Qualcomm more recently). It has towers, contracts for handsets, and everything else that would let it plug in Verizon’s licenses. Other providers would need to incur these expenses over and above the cost of winning the auction in the first place.

Allow me to summarize:  AT&T will win the licenses because it can make the most efficient, effective and timely use of the spectrum.  The horror!

Feld has in one paragraph seemingly undermined his whole case.  If approval of the deal turns on its effect on the public interest, stifling the deal in an explicit (and Quixotic) effort to ensure that the spectrum ends up in the hands of providers less capable of deploying it would seem manifestly to harm, not help, consumers.

And don’t forget that, whatever his preferred vision of the world, the most immediate effect of stopping the SpectrumCo deal will be that all of the spectrum that would have been transferred to—and deployed by—Verizon in the deal will instead remain in the hands of the cable companies where it now sits idly, helping no one relieve the spectrum crunch.

But let’s unpack the claims further.  First, a few factual matters.  AT&T holds no 700 MHz block A spectrum.  It bought block B spectrum in the 2008 auction and acquired spectrum in blocks D and E from Qualcomm.

Second, the claim that this spectrum is essentially worthless, especially  to any carrier except AT&T, is betrayed by reality.  First, despite the claimed interference problems from TV broadcasters for A block spectrum, carriers are in fact deploying on the A block and have obtained devices to facilitate doing so effectively.

Meanwhile, Verizon had already announced in November of last year that it planned to transfer 12 MHz of A block spectrum in Chicago to Leap (note for those keeping score at home: Leap is notAT&T) in exchange for other spectrum around the country, and Cox recently announced that it is selling its own A and B block 700 MHz licenses (yes, eight B block licenses would go to AT&T, but four A block licenses would go to US Cellular).

Pretty clearly these A and B block 700 MHz licenses have value, and not just to AT&T.

Feld does actually realize that his preferred course of action is harmful.  According to Feld, even though the transfer would increase spectrum holdings by companies that aren’t AT&T or Verizon, the fact that it might also facilitate the SpectrumCo deal and thus increase Verizon’s spectrum holdings is reason enough to object.  For Feld and other critics of the deal the concern is over concentrationin spectrum holdings, and thus Verizon’s proposed divestiture is insufficient because the net effect of the deal, even with the divestiture, would be to increase Verizon’s spectrum holdings.  Feld writes:

Verizon takes a giant leap forward in its spectrum holding and overall spectrum efficiency, whereas the competitors improve only marginally in absolute terms. Yes, compared to their current level of spectrum constraint, it would improve the ability of competitors [to compete] . . . [b]ut in absolute terms . . . the difference is so marginal it is not helpful.

Verizon has already said that they have no plans (assuming they get the AWS spectrum) to actually use the Lower MHz 700 A & B licenses, so selling those off does not reduce Verizon’s lead in the spectrum gap. So if we care about the spectrum gap, we need to take into account that this divestiture still does not alleviate the overall problem of spectrum concentration, even if it does improve spectrum efficiency.

But Feld is using a fantasy denominator to establish his concentration ratio.  The divestiture only increases concentration when compared to a hypothetical world in which self-proclaimed protectors of the public interest get to distribute spectrum according to their idealized notions of a preferred market structure.  But the relevant baseline for assessing the divestiture, even on Feld’s own concentration-centric terms, is the distribution of licenses under the deal without the divestiture—against which the divestiture manifestly reduces concentration, even if only “marginally.”

Moreover, critics commit the same inappropriate fantasizing when criticizing the SpectrumCo deal itself.  Again, even if Feld’s imaginary world would be preferable to the post-deal world (more on which below), that imaginary world simply isn’t on the table.  What is on the table if the deal falls through is the status quo—that is, the world in which Verizon is stuck with spectrum it is willing to sell and foreclosed from access to spectrum it wants to buy; US Cellular, AT&T and other carriers are left without access to Verizon’s lower-block 700 MHz spectrum; and the cable companies are saddled with spectrum they won’t use.

Perhaps, compared to this world, the deal does increase concentration.  More importantly, compared to this world the deal increases spectrum deployment.  Significantly.  But never mind:  The benefits of actual and immediate deployment of spectrum can never match up in the scolds’ minds to the speculative and theoretical harms from increased concentration, especially when judged against a hypothetical world that does not and will not ever exist.

But what is most appalling about critics’ efforts to withhold valuable spectrum from consumers for the sake of avoiding increased concentration is the reality that increased concentration doesn’t actually cause any harm.

In fact, it is simply inappropriate to assess the likely competitive effects of this or any other transaction in this industry by assessing concentration based on spectrum holdings.  Of key importance here is the reality that spectrum alone—though essential to effective competitiveness—is not enough to amass customers, let alone confer market power.  In this regard it is well worth noting that the very spectrum holdings at issue in the SpectrumCo deal, although significant in size, produce precisely zero market share for their current owners.

Even the FCC recognizes the weakness of reliance upon market structure as an indicator of market competitiveness in its most recent Wireless Competition Report, where the agency notes that highly concentrated markets may nevertheless be intensely competitive.

And the DOJ, in assessing “Economic Issues in Broadband Competition,” has likewise concluded both that these markets are likely to be concentrated and that such concentration does not raisecompetitive concerns.  In large-scale networks “with differentiated products subject to large economies of scale (relative to the size of the market), the Department does not expect to see a large number of suppliers.”  Rather, the DOJ cautions against “striving for broadband markets that look like textbook markets of perfect competition, with many price-taking firms.  That market structure is unsuitable for the provision of broadband services.”

Although commonly trotted out as a conclusion in support of monopolization, the fact that a market may be concentrated is simply not a reliable indicator of anticompetitive effect, and naked reliance on such conclusions is inconsistent with modern understandings of markets and competition.

As it happens, there is detailed evidence in the Fifteenth Wireless Competition Report on actual competitive dynamics; market share analysis is unlikely to provide any additional insight.  And the available evidence suggests that the tide toward concentration has resulted in considerable benefits and certainly doesn’t warrant a presumption of harm in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary specific to this license transfer.  Instead, there is considerable evidence of rapidly falling prices, quality expansion, capital investment, and a host of other characteristics inconsistent with a monopoly assumption that might otherwise be erroneously inferred from a structural analysis like that employed by Feld and other critics.

In fact, as economists Gerald Faulhaber, Robert Hahn & Hal Singer point out, a simple plotting of cellular prices against market concentration shows a strong inverse relationship inconsistent with an inference of monopoly power from market shares:

Today’s wireless market is an arguably concentrated but remarkably competitive market.  Concentration of resources in the hands of the largest wireless providers has not slowed the growth of the market; rather the central problem is one of spectrum scarcity.  According to the Fifteenth Report, “mobile broadband growth is likely to outpace the ability of technology and network improvements to keep up by an estimated factor of three, leading to a spectrum deficit that is likely to approach 300 megahertz within the next five years.”

Feld and his friends can fret about the phantom problem of concentration all they like—it doesn’t change the reality that the real problem is the lack of available spectrum to meet consumer demand.  It’s bad enough that they are doing whatever they can to stop the SpectrumCo deal itself which would ensure that spectrum moves from the cable companies, where it sits unused, to Verizon, where it would be speedily deployed.  But when they contort themselves to criticize even the re-allocation of spectrum under the so-called divestiture, which would directly address the very issue they hold so dear, it is clear that these “protectors of consumer rights” are not really protecting consumers at all.
Cross-posted from Forbes

The DOJ’s recent press release on the Google/Motorola, Rockstar Bidco, and Apple/ Novell transactions struck me as a bit odd when I read it.  As I’ve now had a bit of time to digest it, I’ve grown to really dislike it.  For those who have not followed Jorge Contreras had an excellent summary of events at Patently-O.

For those of us who have been following the telecom patent battles, something remarkable happened a couple of weeks ago.  On February 7, the Wall St. Journal reported that, back in November, Apple sent a letter[1] to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) setting forth Apple’s position regarding its commitment to license patents essential to ETSI standards.  In particular, Apple’s letter clarified its interpretation of the so-called “FRAND” (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing terms that ETSI participants are required to use when licensing standards-essential patents.  As one might imagine, the actual scope and contours of FRAND licenses have puzzled lawyers, regulators and courts for years, and past efforts at clarification have never been very successful.  The next day, on February 8, Google released a letter[2] that it sent to the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), ETSI and several other standards organizations.  Like Apple, Google sought to clarify its position on FRAND licensing.  And just hours after Google’s announcement, Microsoft posted a statement of “Support for Industry Standards”[3] on its web site, laying out its own gloss on FRAND licensing.  For those who were left wondering what instigated this flurry of corporate “clarification”, the answer arrived a few days later when, on February 13, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released its decision[4] to close the investigation of three significant patent-based transactions:  the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google, the acquisition of a large patent portfolio formerly held by Nortel Networks by “Rockstar Bidco” (a group including Microsoft, Apple, RIM and others), and the acquisition by Apple of certain Linux-related patents formerly held by Novell.  In its decision, the DOJ noted with approval the public statements by Apple and Microsoft, while expressing some concern with Google’s FRAND approach.  The European Commission approved Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility on the same day.

To understand the significance of the Apple, Microsoft and Google FRAND statements, some background is in order.  The technical standards that enable our computers, mobile phones and home entertainment gear to communicate and interoperate are developed by corps of “volunteers” who get together in person and virtually under the auspices of standards-development organizations (SDOs).  These SDOs include large, international bodies such as ETSI and IEEE, as well as smaller consortia and interest groups.  The engineers who do the bulk of the work, however, are not employees of the SDOs (which are usually thinly-staffed non-profits), but of the companies who plan to sell products that implement the standards: the Apples, Googles, Motorolas and Microsofts of the world.  Should such a company obtain a patent covering the implementation of a standard, it would be able to exert significant leverage over the market for products that implemented the standard.  In particular, if a patent holder were to obtain, or even threaten to obtain, an injunction against manufacturers of competing standards-compliant products, either the standard would become far less useful, or the market would experience significant unanticipated costs.  This phenomenon is what commentators have come to call “patent hold-up”.  Due to the possibility of hold-up, most SDOs today require that participants in the standards-development process disclose their patents that are necessary to implement the standard and/or commit to license those patents on FRAND terms.

As Contreras notes, an important part of these FRAND commitments offered by Google, Motorola, and Apple related to the availability of injunctive relief (do go see the handy chart in Contreras’ post laying out the key differences in the commitments).  Contreras usefully summarizes the three statements’ positions on injunctive relief:

In their February FRAND statements, Apple and Microsoft each commit not to seek injunctions on the basis of their standards-essential patents.  Google makes a similar commitment, but qualifies it in typically lawyerly fashion (Google’s letter is more than 3 single-spaced pages in length, while Microsoft’s simple statement occupies about a quarter of a page).  In this case, Google’s careful qualifications (injunctive relief might be possible if the potential licensee does not itself agree to refrain from seeking an injunction, if licensing negotiations extended beyond a reasonable period, and the like) worked against it.  While the DOJ applauds Apple’s and Microsoft’s statements “that they will not seek to prevent or exclude rivals’ products form the market”, it views Google’s commitments as “less clear”.  The DOJ thus “continues to have concerns about the potential inappropriate use of [standards-essential patents] to disrupt competition”.

Its worth reading the DOJ’s press release on this point — specifically, that while the DOJ found that none of the three transactions itself raised competitive concerns or was substantially likely to lessen the competition, the DOJ expressed general concerns about the relationship between these firms’ market positions and ability to use the threat of injunctive relief to hold up rivals:

Apple’s and Google’s substantial share of mobile platforms makes it more likely that as the owners of additional SEPs they could hold up rivals, thus harming competition and innovation.  For example, Apple would likely benefit significantly through increased sales of its devices if it could exclude Android-based phones from the market or raise the costs of such phones through IP-licenses or patent litigation.  Google could similarly benefit by raising the costs of, or excluding, Apple devices because of the revenues it derives from Android-based devices.

The specific transactions at issue, however, are not likely to substantially lessen competition.  The evidence shows that Motorola Mobility has had a long and aggressive history of seeking to capitalize on its intellectual property and has been engaged in extended disputes with Apple, Microsoft and others.  As Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility is unlikely to materially alter that policy, the division concluded that transferring ownership of the patents would not substantially alter current market dynamics.  This conclusion is limited to the transfer of ownership rights and not the exercise of those transferred rights.

With respect to Apple/Novell, the division concluded that the acquisition of the patents from CPTN, formerly owned by Novell, is unlikely to harm competition.  While the patents Apple would acquire are important to the open source community and to Linux-based software in particular, the OIN, to which Novell belonged, requires its participating patent holders to offer a perpetual, royalty-free license for use in the “Linux-system.”  The division investigated whether the change in ownership would permit Apple to avoid OIN commitments and seek royalties from Linux users.  The division concluded it would not, a conclusion made easier by Apple’s commitment to honor Novell’s OIN licensing commitments.

In its analysis of the transactions, the division took into account the fact that during the pendency of these investigations, Apple, Google and Microsoft each made public statements explaining their respective SEP licensing practices.  Both Apple and Microsoft made clear that they will not seek to prevent or exclude rivals’ products from the market in exercising their SEP rights.

What’s problematic about a competition enforcement agency extracting promises not to enforce lawfully obtained property rights during merger review, outside the formal consent process, and in transactions that do not raise competitive concerns themselves?  For starters, the DOJ’s expression about competitive concerns about “hold up” obfuscate an important issue.  In Rambus the D.C. Circuit clearly held that not all forms of what the DOJ describes here as patent holdup violate the antitrust laws in the first instance.  Both appellate courts discussion patent holdup as an antitrust violation have held the patent holder must deceptively induce the SSO to adopt the patented technology.  Rambus makes clear — as I’ve discussed — that a firm with lawfully acquired monopoly power who merely raises prices does not violate the antitrust laws.  The proposition that all forms of patent holdup are antitrust violations is dubious.  For an agency to extract concessions that go beyond the scope of the antitrust laws at all, much less through merger review of transactions that do not raise competitive concerns themselves, raises serious concerns.

Here is what the DOJ says about Google’s commitment:

If adhered to in practice, these positions could significantly reduce the possibility of a hold up or use of an injunction as a threat to inhibit or preclude innovation and competition.

Google’s commitments have been less clear.  In particular, Google has stated to the IEEE and others on Feb. 8, 2012, that its policy is to refrain from seeking injunctive relief for the infringement of SEPs against a counter-party, but apparently only for disputes involving future license revenues, and only if the counterparty:  forgoes certain defenses such as challenging the validity of the patent; pays the full disputed amount into escrow; and agrees to a reciprocal process regarding injunctions.  Google’s statement therefore does not directly provide the same assurance as the other companies’ statements concerning the exercise of its newly acquired patent rights.  Nonetheless, the division determined that the acquisition of the patents by Google did not substantially lessen competition, but how Google may exercise its patents in the future remains a significant concern.

No doubt the DOJ statement is accurate and the DOJ’s concerns about patent holdup are genuine.  But that’s not the point.

The question of the appropriate role for injunctions and damages in patent infringement litigation is a complex one.  While many scholars certainly argue that the use of injunctions facilitates patent hold up and threatens innovation.  There are serious debates to be had about whether more vigorous antitrust enforcement of the contractual relationships between patent holders and standard setting organization (SSOs) would spur greater innovation.   The empirical evidence suggesting patent holdup is a pervasive problem is however, at best, quite mixed.  Further, others argue that the availability of injunctions is not only a fundamental aspect of our system of property rights, but also from an economic perspective, that the power of the injunctions facilitates efficient transacting by the parties.  For example, some contend that the power to obtain injunctive relief for infringement within the patent thicket results in a “cold war” of sorts in which the threat is sufficient to induce cross-licensing by all parties.  Surely, this is not first best.  But that isn’t the relevant question.

There are other more fundamental problems with the notion of patent holdup as an antitrust concern.  Kobayashi & Wright also raise concerns with the theoretical case for antitrust enforcement of patent holdup on several grounds.  One is that high probability of detection of patent holdup coupled with antitrust’s treble damages makes overdeterrence highly likely.  Another is that alternative remedies such as contract and the patent doctrine of equitable estoppel render the marginal benefits of antitrust enforcement trivial or negative in this context.  Froeb, Ganglmair & Werden raise similar points.   Suffice it to say that the debate on the appropriate scope of antitrust enforcement in patent holdup is ongoing as a general matter; there is certainly no consensus with regard to economic theory or empirical evidence that stripping the availability of injunctive relief from patent holders entering into contractual relationships with SSOs will enhance competition or improve consumer welfare.  It is quite possible that such an intervention would chill competition, participation in SSOs, and the efficient contracting process potentially facilitated by the availability of injunctive relief.

The policy debate I describe above is an important one.  Many of the questions at the center of that complex debate are not settled as a matter of economic theory, empirics, or law.  This post certainly has no ambitions to resolve them here; my goal is a much more modest one.  The DOJs policymaking efforts through the merger review process raise serious issues.  I would hope that all would agree — regardless of where they stand on the patent holdup debate — that the idea that these complex debates be hammered out in merger review at the DOJ because the DOJ happens to have a number of cases involving patent portfolios is a foolish one for several reasons.

First, it is unclear the DOJ could have extracted these FRAND concessions through proper merger review.  The DOJ apparently agreed that the transactions did not raise serious competitive concerns.   The pressure imposed by the DOJ upon the parties to make the commitments to the SSOs not to pursue injunctive relief as part of a FRAND commitment outside of the normal consent process raises serious concerns.  The imposition of settlement conditions far afield from the competitive consequences of the merger itself is something we do see from antitrust enforcement agencies in other countries quite frequently, but this sort of behavior burns significant reputational capital with the rest of the world when our agencies go abroad to lecture on the importance of keeping antitrust analysis consistent, predictable, and based upon the economic fundamentals of the transaction at hand.

Second, the DOJ Antitrust Division does not alone have comparative advantage in determining the optimal use of injunctions versus damages in the patent system.

Third, appearances here are quite problematic.  Given that the DOJ did not appear to have significant competitive concerns with the transactions, one can create the following narrative of events without too much creative effort: (1) the DOJ team has theoretical priors that injunctive relief is a significant competitive problem, (2) the DOJ happens to have these mergers in front of it pending review from a couple of firms likely to be repeat players in the antitrust enforcement game, (3) the DOJ asks the firms to make these concessions despite the fact that they have little to do with the conventional antitrust analysis of the transactions, under which they would have been approved without condition.

The more I think about the use of the merger review process to extract concessions from patent holders in the form of promises not to enforce property rights which they would otherwise be legally entitled to, the more the DOJ’s actions appear inappropriate.  The stakes are high here both in terms of identifying patent and competition rules that will foster rather than hamper innovation, but also with respect to compromising the integrity of merger review through the imposition of non-merger related conditions we are more akin to seeing from the FCC, states, or less well-developed antitrust regimes.

Filed under: antitrust, contracts, economics, google, intellectual property, licensing, litigation, markets, merger guidelines, mergers & acquisitions, patent, technology, telecommunications, wireless

Economists recognize that the source of sustainable, private-sector jobs is investment. Due to measurement problems with investment data, however, it is sometimes easier to link a byproduct of investment—namely, adoption of the technology made possible by the investment—to job creation. This is precisely what economists Rob Shapiro and Kevin Hassett have done in their new study on the employment effects of wireless investments.

Read the full piece here.

Regulated firms and their Washington lawyers study agency reports and public statements carefully to figure out the rules of the road; the clearer the rules, the easier it is for regulated firms to understand how the rules affect their businesses and to plan accordingly. So long as the regulator and the regulated firm are on the same page, resources will be put to the most valuable use allowed under the regulations.

Read the full piece here.

In the wake of the announcement that AT&T and T-Mobile are walking away from their proposed merger, there will be ample time to discuss whether the deal would have passed muster in federal court, and to review the various strategic maneuvers by the parties, the DOJ, and the FCC.  But now is a good time to take a look at what the market is predicting — and what that has to say about the various theories offered concerning the merger.  In prior blog posts, we’ve examined the stock market reaction to various events surrounding the merger — and in particular, the announcement that the DOJ would challenge it in federal court.

For a brief review, there are two primary theories that the merger would reduce competition and harm consumers.  Horizontal theories predict that the post-merger firm would gain market power, raise market prices and reduce output.  On these theories, Sprint and other rivals’ stock prices should increase in response to the merger; thus, if the DOJ announcement to challenge the merger reduces the probability of the post-merger acquisition of market power, Sprint stock should fall in response.  We know that it didn’t.  It surged.   That is consistent with a procompetitive merger because the challenge increases the probability that the rival will not face more intense competition post-merger.  Thus, Sprint’s surge in reaction to the DOJ announcement is consistent with the simple explanation that the merger was procompetitive and the market anticipated more intense competition post-merger.

Of course, as AAI and others have pointed out, Sprint’s stock price surge in response to the merger challenge was also consistent with “exclusionary” theories of the merger that posit that the post-merger firm would be able to foreclose Sprint from access to critical inputs (in particular, handsets) required to compete.  Richard Brunell (AAI) made this point in the comments to our earlier blog post, relying upon the fact that Verizon’s stock fell 1.2% (compared to market drop of .7%) to emphasize the applicability of the exclusion theory.   The importance of Verizon’s stock price reaction, the argument goes, is that while Sprint has to fear exclusion by a combined ATT/TMo, Verizon does not.  Thus, proponents of the exclusion theories assert, the combined surge in Sprint stock with Verizon’s relative non-movement is consistent with that anticompetitive theory.

Not so fast.  As I’ve pointed out, this conclusion relies upon an incomplete exposition of the economics of exclusion and one that should be difficult to square with your intuition.  If Verizon has nothing to fear from the post-merger firm excluding Sprint, it should greatly benefit from the merger!   Consider that if the exclusion theories are correct, Verizon gets the benefit of free-riding upon AT&T’s $39 billion investment in eliminating or weakening one of its rivals.   Surely, the $39 billion investment to exclude Sprint and other smaller rivals — as the exclusion proponents argue is the motive for merger here — provides considerable benefits to Verizon who doesn’t pay a dime.  Thus, rather than holding constant, Verizon’s stock price should fall significantly in response to the lost opportunity to appropriate these exclusionary gains for free.  Verizon’s stock non-reaction to the announcement that DOJ would challenge the merger was, in my view, inconsistent with the exclusion theories.   In sum, the market did not appear to anticipate the acquisition of market power as a result of the merger.

We now have a new event to use to evaluate the market’s reaction: AT&T and T-Mobile abandoning the merger.   It appears that, once again, Sprint’s stock price surged in reaction to the news (and now up about 8% in the last 24 hours).  Again, Verizon doesn’t move much at all.

Stock market reactions and event studies — and I’m not claiming I’ve done a full blown event study here,  just a simple comparison of stock price reactions to the market trends — produce valuable information.  They are obviously not dispositive.  The market can be wrong.  But so can regulators.  And as my colleague Bruce Kobayashi said in an interview (which I cannot find online) in Fortune Magazine evaluating the market reaction to the Staples-Office Depot merger in light of the FTC’s challenge: “It boils down to whether you trust the agencies or the stock market. I’ll take the stock market any day.”

Markets provide information.  The information provided here gives no reason to celebrate the withdraw on the behalf of consumers, or even the ever-present “public interest.”  Celebratory announcements to the contrary should be read with at least a healthy dose of skepticism in light of information above (and see also Hal’s excellent post) that the market did not anticipate the merger to facilitate the acquisition of market power via the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile or through the exclusion of Sprint.   Media reports that the merger was a “slam-dunk” in terms of the economics or that this is a tale of dispassionate economic analysis defeating the monopolist lobbying machine are misleading at best.   More importantly for the future, abandoning this merger does not repeal the spectrum capacity constraints facing the wireless industry, the ever-increasing demand for data, or the dearth of alternative options (despite the FCC’s claims that non-merger alternatives abound) for acquiring spectrum efficiently.

This will be a very interesting space to watch as the agencies deal with what will undoubtedly be other attempts to consolidate spectrum assets — especially in light of the FCC Report and the framework it lays down for evaluating future mergers.

Filed under: antitrust, doj, economics, federal communications commission, wireless

Yesterday, AT&T announced it was halting its plan to acquire T-Mobile. Presumably AT&T did not think it could prevail in defending the merger in two places simultaneously—one before a federal district court judge (to defend against the DOJ’s case) and another before an administrative law judge (to defend against the FCC’s case). Staff at both agencies appeared intractable in their opposition. AT&T’s option of defending cases sequentially, first against the DOJ then against the FCC, was removed by the DOJ’s threat to withdraw its complaint unless AT&T re-submit its merger application to the FCC. The FCC rarely makes a major license-transfer decision without the green light from the DOJ on antitrust issues. Instead, the FCC typically piles on conditions to transfer value created by the merger to complaining parties after the DOJ has approved a merger. Prevailing first against the DOJ would have rendered the FCC’s opposition moot.

Read the full piece here.

By now everyone is probably aware of the “tracking” of certain cellphones (Sprint, iPhone, T-Mobile, AT&T perhaps others) by a company called Carrier IQ.  There are lots of discussions available; a good summary is on one of my favorite websites, Lifehacker;  also here from CNET. Apparently the program gathers lots of anonymous data mainly for the purpose of helping carriers improve their service. Nonetheless, there are lawsuits and calls for the FTC to investigate.

Aside from the fact that the data is used only to improve service, it is also useful to ask just what people are afraid of.  Clearly the phone companies already have access to SMS messages if they want it since these go through the phone system anyway.  Moreover, of course, no person would see the data even if it were somehow collected.  The fear is perhaps that “… marketers can use that data to sell you more stuff or send targeted ads…” (from the Lifehacker site) but even if so, so what?  If apps are using data to try to sell you stuff that they think that you want, what is the harm? If you do want it, then the app has done you a service.  If you don’t want it, then you don’t buy it.  Ads tailored to your behavior are likely to be more useful than ads randomly assigned.

The Lifehacker story does use phrases like “freak people out” and “scary” and “creepy.”  But except for the possibility of being sold stuff, the story never explains what is harmful about the behavior.  As I have said before, I think the basic problem is that people cannot understand the notion that something is known but no person knows it.  If some server somewhere knows where your phone has been, so what?

The end result of this episode will probably be somewhat worse phone service.

Filed under: advertising, consumer protection, privacy, regulation, technology, telecommunications, wireless

Geoff Manne’s blog on the FCC’s Staff Analysis and Findings (“Staff Report”) has inspired me to come up with a top ten list. The Staff Report relies heavily on concentration indices to make inferences about a carrier’s pricing power, even though direct evidence of pricing power is available (and points in the opposite direction). In this post, I have chosen ten lines from the Staff Report that reveal the weakness of the economic analysis and suggest a potential regulatory agenda. It is clear that the staff want T-Mobile’s spectrum to land in the hands of a suitor other than AT&T—the government apparently can allocate scare resources better than the market—and that the report’s authors define the public interest as locking AT&T’s spectrum holdings in place.

Read the full piece here.

As everyone knows by now, AT&T’s proposed merger with T-Mobile has hit a bureaucratic snag at the FCC.  The remarkable decision to refer the merger to the Commission’s Administrative Law Judge (in an effort to derail the deal) and the public release of the FCC staff’s internal, draft report are problematic and poorly considered.  But far worse is the content of the report on which the decision to attempt to kill the deal was based.

With this report the FCC staff joins the exalted company of AT&T’s complaining competitors (surely the least reliable judges of the desirability of the proposed merger if ever there were any) and the antitrust policy scolds and consumer “advocates” who, quite literally, have never met a merger of which they approved.

In this post I’m going to hit a few of the most glaring problems in the staff’s report, and I hope to return again soon with further analysis.

As it happens, AT&T’s own response to the report is actually very good and it effectively highlights many of the key problems with the staff’s report.  While it might make sense to take AT&T’s own reply with a grain of salt, in this case the reply is, if anything, too tame.  No doubt the company wants to keep in the Commission’s good graces (it is the very definition of a repeat player at the agency, after all).  But I am not so constrained.  Using the company’s reply as a jumping off point, let me discuss a few of the problems with the staff report.

First, as the blog post (written by Jim Cicconi, Senior Vice President of External & Legislative Affairs) notes,

We expected that the AT&T-T-Mobile transaction would receive careful, considered, and fair analysis.   Unfortunately, the preliminary FCC Staff Analysis offers none of that.  The document is so obviously one-sided that any fair-minded person reading it is left with the clear impression that it is an advocacy piece, and not a considered analysis.

In our view, the report raises questions as to whether its authors were predisposed.  The report cherry-picks facts to support its views, and ignores facts that don’t.  Where facts were lacking, the report speculates, with no basis, and then treats its own speculations as if they were fact.  This is clearly not the fair and objective analysis to which any party is entitled, and which we have every right to expect.

OK, maybe they aren’t pulling punches.  The fact that this reply was written with such scathing language despite AT&T’s expectation to have to go right back to the FCC to get approval for this deal in some form or another itself speaks volumes about the undeniable shoddiness of the report.

Cicconi goes on to detail five areas where AT&T thinks the report went seriously awry:  “Expanding LTE to 97% of the U.S. Population,” “Job Gains Versus Losses,” “Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s Parent, Has Serious Investment Constraints,” “Spectrum” and “Competition.”  I have dealt with a few of these issues at some length elsewhere, including most notably here (noting how the FCC’s own wireless competition report “supports what everyone already knows: falling prices, improved quality, dynamic competition and unflagging innovation have led to a golden age of mobile services”), and here (“It is troubling that critics–particularly those with little if any business experience–are so certain that even with no obvious source of additional spectrum suitable for LTE coming from the government any time soon, and even with exponential growth in broadband (including mobile) data use, AT&T’s current spectrum holdings are sufficient to satisfy its business plans”).

What is really galling about the staff report—and, frankly, the basic posture of the agency—is that its criticisms really boil down to one thing:  “We believe there is another way to accomplish (something like) what AT&T wants to do here, and we’d just prefer they do it that way.”  This is central planning at its most repugnant.  What is both assumed and what is lacking in this basic posture is beyond the pale for an allegedly independent government agency—and as Larry Downes notes in the linked article, the agency’s hubris and its politics may have real, costly consequences for all of us.

Competition

But procedure must be followed, and the staff thus musters a technical defense to support its basic position, starting with the claim that the merger will result in too much concentration.  Blinded by its new-found love for HHIs, the staff commits a few blunders.  First, it claims that concentration levels like those in this case “trigger a presumption of harm” to competition, citing the DOJ/FTC Merger Guidelines.  Alas, as even the report’s own footnotes reveal, the Merger Guidelines actually say that highly concentrated markets with HHI increases of 200 or more trigger a presumption that the merger will “enhance market power.”  This is not, in fact, the same thing as harm to competition.  Elsewhere the staff calls this—a merger that increases concentration and gives one firm an “undue” share of the market—“presumptively illegal.”  Perhaps the staff could use an antitrust refresher course.  I’d be happy to come teach it.

Not only is there no actual evidence of consumer harm resulting from the sort of increases in concentration that might result from the merger, but the staff seems to derive its negative conclusions despite the damning fact that the data shows that wireless markets have seen considerable increases in concentration along with considerable decreases in prices, rather than harm to competition, over the last decade.  While high and increasing HHIs might indicate a need for further investigation, when actual evidence refutes the connection between concentration and price, they simply lose their relevance.  Someone should tell the FCC staff.

This is a different Wireless Bureau than the one that wrote so much sensible material in the 15^th Annual Wireless Competition Report.  That Bureau described a complex, dynamic, robust mobile “ecosystem” driven not by carrier market power and industrial structure, but by rapid evolution and technological disruptors.  The analysis here wishes away every important factor that every consumer knows to be the real drivers of price and innovation in the mobile marketplace, including, among other things:

1. Local markets, where there are five, six, or more carriers to choose from;
2. Non-contract/pre-paid providers, whose strength is rapidly growing;
3. Technology that is making more bands of available spectrum useful for competitive offerings;
4. The reality that LTE will make inter-modal competition a reality; and
5. The reality that churn is rampant and consumer decision-making is driven today by devices, operating systems, applications and content – not networks.

The resulting analysis is stilted and stale, and describes a wireless industry that exists only in the agency’s collective imagination.

There is considerably more to say about the report’s tortured unilateral effects analysis, but it will have to wait for my next post.  Here I want to quickly touch on a two of the other issues called out by Cicconi’s blog post.

Jobs

First, although it’s not really in my bailiwick to comment on the job claims that have been such an important aspect of the public conversations surrounding this merger, some things are simple logic, and the staff’s contrary claims here are inscrutable.  As Cicconi suggests, it is hard to understand how the $8 billion investment and build-out required to capitalize on AT&T’s T-Mobile purchase will fail to produce a host of jobs, how the creation of a more-robust, faster broadband network will fail to ignite even further growth in this growing sector of the economy, and, finally, how all this can fail to happen while the FCC’s own (relatively) paltry $4.5 billion broadband fund will somehow nevertheless create approximately 500,000 (!!!) jobs.  Even Paul Krugman knows that private investment is better than government investment in generating stimulus – the claim is that there’s not enough of it, not that it doesn’t work as well.  Here, however, the fiscal experts on the FCC’s staff have determined that massive private funding won’t create even 96,000 jobs, although the same agency claims that government funding only one half as large will create five times that many jobs.  Um, really?

Meanwhile the agency simply dismisses AT&T’s job preservation commitments.  Now, I would also normally disregard such unenforceable pronouncements as cheap talk – except given the frequency and the volume with which AT&T has made them, they would suffer pretty mightily for failing to follow through on them now.  Even more important perhaps, I have to believe (again, given the vehemence with which they have made the statements and the reality of de facto, reputational enforcement) they are willing to agree to whatever is in their control in a consent decree, thus making them, in fact, legally enforceable.  For the staff to so blithely disregard AT&T’s claims on jobs is unintelligible except as farce—or venality.

Spectrum

Although the report rarely misses an opportunity to fail to mention the spectrum crisis that has been at the center of the Administration’s telecom agenda and the focus of the National Broadband Plan, coincidentally authored by the FCC’s staff, the crux of the report seems to come down to a stark denial that such a spectrum crunch even exists.  As I noted, much of the staff report amounts to an extended meditation on why the parties can and should run their businesses as the staff say they can and should.  The report’s section assessing the parties’ claims regarding the transition to LTE (para 210, ff.) is remarkable.  It begins thus:

One of the Applicants’ primary justifications for the necessity of this transaction is that, as standalone firms, AT&T and T-Mobile are, and will continue to be, spectrum and capacity constrained. Due to these constraints, we find it more plausible that a spectrum constrained firm would maximize deployment of more spectrally efficient LTE, rather than limit it. Transitioning to LTE is primarily a function of only two factors: (1) the extent of LTE capable equipment deployed on the network and (2) the penetration of LTE compatible devices in the subscriber base. Although it may make it more economical, the transition does not require “spectrum headroom” as the Applicants claim. Increased deployment could be achieved by both of the Applicants on a standalone basis by adding the more spectrally efficient LTE-capable radios and equipment to the network and then providing customers with dual mode HSPAILTE devices. . . .

Forget the spectrum crunch!  It is the very absence of spectrum that will give firms the incentive and the ability to transition to more-efficient technology.  And all they have to do is run duplicate equipment on their networks and give all their customers new devices overnight.  And, well, the whole business model fits in a few paragraphs, entails no new spectrum, actually creates spectrum, and meets all foreseeable demand (as long as demand never increases which, of course, the report conveniently fails to assess).

Moreover, claims the report, AT&T’s transition to LTE flows inevitably from its competition with Verizon.  But, as Cicconi points out, the staff is unprincipled in its disparate treatment of the industry’s competitive conditions.  Somehow, without T-Mobile in the mix, prices will skyrocket and quality will be degraded—let’s say, just for example, by not upgrading to LTE (my interpretation, not the staff’s).  But 100 pages later, it turns out that AT&T doesn’t need to merge with T-Mobile to expand its LTE network because it will have to do so in response to competition from Verizon anyway.  It would appear, however, that Verizon’s power over AT&T operates only if T-Mobile exists separately and AT&T has a harder time competing.  Remove T-Mobile and expand AT&T’s ability to compete and, apparently, the market collapses.  Such is the logic of the report.

There is much more to criticize in the report, and I hope to have a chance to do so in the next few days.

Filed under: antitrust, business, law and economics, merger guidelines, regulation, technology, telecommunications Tagged: at&t, FCC, merger, t-mobile