TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET, AND OTHER NETWORK INDUSTRIES

In addition to traditionally regulated network industries, such as telecommunications, broadcasting, energy, and railroads, many new technologies are founded on the same economic principles: computer software, social media websites, and even search engines all depend on network externalities. Firms in network industries present unique cost and asset characteristics that generate many of the most complex business and legal issues faced today. Many network industries are characterized by rapid innovation—firms may enjoy only brief windows of opportunity to win and to retain customers, before next-generation technologies displace them. The protection of intellectual property rights is of paramount strategic importance. These realities generate critical legal and economic questions.

Criterion has deep expertise in the economics of network industries. The firm’s work has been cited and adopted by courts and regulators in the United States and abroad.

Our clients span the globe and are leaders in a wide range of dynamic fields. Representative engagements undertaken by Criterion experts have included:

  • Analysis of proposed “network neutrality” regulation of the Internet
  • Scores of matters involving telecommunications deregulation, interconnection, unbundling, rate regulation, mergers, takings, and industry restructuring for Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, Telstra, Bell Canada, TelMex, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, eircom, Portugal Telecom, and others
  • Analysis for the Republic of Mexico in the World Trade Organization’s first arbitration under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which concerned settlement rates on international telephone calls from the United States to Mexico
  • Analysis of the WorldCom fraud and bankruptcy
  • Stranded cost proceedings and restructuring for investor-owned electric utilities in numerous states
  • Analysis of spectrum auction policy
  • Evaluation of the competitive consequences of mergers in satellite radio and satellite television industries
  • Studies of the United States Postal Service and the postal rate and fee structure
  • Analysis of the FCC’s broadcast ownership rules

Related Publications:

J. Gregory Sidak, "A Consumer-Welfare Approach to Network Neutrality Regulation of the Internet," 2 Journal of Competition Law & Economics 349 (2006).

J. Gregory Sidak, "Did Mandatory Unbundling Achieve Its Purpose? Empirical Evidence from Five Countries," 1 Journal of Competition Law & Economics 173 (2005), co-authored with Jerry A. Hausman.

J. Gregory Sidak, "Should Regulators Set Rates to Terminate Calls on Mobile Networks?," 21 Yale Journal on Regulation 261 (2004), co-authored with Robert W. Crandall.

J. Gregory Sidak, "The Failure of Good Intentions: The WorldCom Fraud and the Collapse of American Telecommunications After Deregulation," 20 Yale Journal on Regulation 207 (2003).

J. Gregory Sidak, "Antitrust Divestiture in Network Industries," 68 University of Chicago Law Review 1 (2001), co-authored with Howard A. Shelanski.

J. Gregory Sidak, "An Antitrust Rule for Software Integration," 18 Yale Journal on Regulation 1 (2001).

J. Gregory Sidak, "A Consumer-Welfare Approach to Mandatory Unbundling of Telecommunications Networks," 109 Yale Law Journal 417 (1999), co-authored with Jerry A. Hausman.

J. Gregory Sidak, "Givings, Takings, and the Fallacy of Forward-Looking Costs," 72 New York University Law Review 1068 (1997), co-authored with Daniel F. Spulber.

J. Gregory Sidak, "The Tragedy of the Telecommons: Government Pricing of Unbundled Network Elements Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996," 97 Columbia Law Review 1081 (1997), co-authored with Daniel F. Spulber.

J. Gregory Sidak, "Deregulatory Takings and Breach of the Regulatory Contract," 71 New York University Law Review 851 (1996), co-authored with Daniel F. Spulber.

J. Gregory Sidak, Deregulatory Takings and the Regulatory Contract: The Competitive Transformation of Network Industries in the United States, (Cambridge University Press), co-authored with Daniel F. Spulber.