Sample Final Exam Questions: Telecommunications Law and Policy
Professor: Peter M Shane

Choose a number at least 6 digits and no more than 11 digits long. Place this number immediately on this sheet, the test number registration sheet, and on each of your blue books.

Place your name on the test number registration sheet. Fold the sheet and seal it inside the accompanying envelope. DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE ENVELOPE.

This exam consists of five (5) pages, including this sheet. Please be sure you have all pages before you start the examination.
This is a three-hour examination. It counts counts for 60 per cent of your final grade.

You should not have to assume facts in responding to the question posed, but if you feel that the question is incomplete as to a material fact, state the material fact and how it would affect your answer.

This is a limited open-book essay-type exam. You may have with you any materials other than materials in the form of computer files, tapes, video, or electronic media. Because of this limitation, you may not use a laptop computer in connection with this exam.

BE SURE, in preparing your answer, to follow these rules:
A. Write or type on ONE SIDE OF THE PAGE ONLY!
B. Write or type only on every other line.
C. Number your answer books.

In grading your exam, I will refer only to the machine-graded answer sheet and the essay answers that appear in your designated answer books. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL ANY WRITTEN MATERIAL PREPARED PRIOR TO THE EXAMINATION, INCLUDING CLASS NOTES OR OUTLINES, BE ACCEPTED AS PART OF YOUR ANSWERS.

THIS EXAMINATION IS NOT TO BE PUBLISHED. THE QUESTIONS, INCLUDING THEIR CONTENT AND THE TOPICS ADDRESSED, ARE NOT TO BE DISCLOSED TO STUDENTS WHO HAVE NEVER TAKEN AN EXAMINATION IN THIS COURSE - INCLUDING STUDENTS CURRENTLY ENROLLED WHO HAVE NOT YET COMPLETED THE EXAM.

When the exam is over, you must hand in the examination questions, your exam registration in the sealed envelope, your blue books, and any notes taken during the exam.


Part One

A new Administration has just taken office in Washington, and you have been hired as Special Assistant to the new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The Chairman has been invited to give a major speech at the National Press Club, to be entitled "Free Markets and the Public Interest in Telecommunications." Unfortunately, the new Chairman knows nothing about this subject, but does have ideas about how YOU are going to write his speech.

Below is a list of potential subjects that the speech might address:

How different portions of the electromagnetic spectrum become associated with particular uses
How frequencies are initially assigned to broadcasters
How frequency assignments are made when there are competing license applicants
How decisions are made regarding license renewals
Broadcaster obligations with regard to the coverage of public issues and candidates
Broadcaster obligations with regard to personal attacks and political endorsements
Broadcaster provision of children's programming
Broadcaster provision of various formats of entertainment programming
Broadcaster obligations with regard to violent programming
Broadcaster provision of non-entertainment programming
Broadcaster ascertainment of community needs
Permissible levels of commercialization on broadcast television
Contracts between television networks and affiliated stations
Contracts between television networks and program suppliers
The capacity of single firms to hold multiple broadcasting licenses, nationally and locally
The transition from analog to digital television
The capacity of broadcasters and program suppliers to withhold programming from cable systems
The content transmitted by cable systems (e.g., local broadcast signals, PEG channels, programming by affiliated entities) and its organization into programming "tiers"
The obligation of cable systems to pay for retransmission rights
The terms of cable franchise contracts
The capacity of single firms to operate multiple cable systems
Contracts between cable system operators and vendors of satellite cable or satellite broadcast programming
Cable rate regulation
The capacity of telephone companies to offer cable services to local subscribers
The capacity of LECs to offer long distance service
The capacity of long distance carriers to enter into local telephone service
The capacity of local exchange carriers to enter into other lines of business
Rate regulation of local exchange carriers
Assurance of universal access to basic residential telephone service at affordable rates

The Chairman wants you to prepare a background memo for the speech in the following way:
1.

Identify five areas on the above list, with regard to which Congress and the FCC have moved clearly in the direction of permitting market forces to achieve "the public interest," either by cutting back on administrative controls or by using those controls solely for the purpose of imitating a free market as closely as possible. Be sure that at least one of these areas relates to broadcast, one to telephony, and one to cable, respectively. For each area:

a. Explain the FCC's current approach;
b. Explain how the FCC handled the area before it moved to a more market-oriented approach;
c. Explain the problems that the prior, less market-oriented approach were thought to address;
d. Explain why the FCC now believes that a more market-oriented approach is preferable.

2.

Identify three areas on the above list, with regard to which Congress and the FCC have retained a preference for administrative control - in some cases, moving even further from a free market model than existed 5, 10 or 15 years ago. For each area:

a. Explain the FCC's current approach;
b. If the FCC recently took a more market-oriented approach, identify what approach the current regulatory regime replaced.
c. Explain what problems of an unregulated market the FCC's current approach is trying to address.

3.

Identify yet another area, not already discussed in your draft, with regard to which Congress and the FCC have moved clearly in the direction of permitting market forces to achieve "the public interest," either by cutting back on administrative controls or by using those controls solely for the purpose of imitating a free market as closely as possible. But this should be an area where you think a reasonable argument exists that the FCC should not be willing to take so market-oriented an approach. For this area:

a. Explain the FCC's current approach;
b. Explain how the FCC handled the area before it moved to a more market-oriented approach;
c. Explain why the FCC believed that a more market-oriented approach would be preferable.
d. Explain why you think problems exist that would justify returning to a tighter degree of administrative control

4.

Identify still another area, not already discussed in your draft, with regard to which Congress and the FCC have retained a preference for administrative control - in some cases, moving even further from a free market model than existed 5, 10 or 15 years ago. But this should be an area where you think the FCC should be willing to take a more market-oriented approach. For this area:

a. Explain the FCC's current approach;
b. Explain what problems of an unregulated market that the FCC's approach is trying to address.
c. Explain why you think an approach involving less administrative control would be just as effective, or more effective, in achieving the public interest.

Note that, when your draft is finished, you should have discussed a total of ten subjects from the Chairman's list. If and only if you have discussed each of those areas fully as discussed above, and if you have further time, the Chairman will think even more highly of your work if you add additional subjects to any subpart of this draft and discuss those fully as well. You will not get extra credit, however, unless you have completed the basic assignment of ten fully discussed areas and unless you provide a full discussion of any additional subject you seek to include. (In other words, don't bother with a paragraph that says, "Here's a list of other areas where the FCC takes a market-oriented [or adminstratively constrained] approach, but about which I do not have time to write anything else . . . .")