Course Description: Telecommunications Law and Policy
Professor: Peter M. Shane

This course is designed to equip students to become effective policy advocates with regard to federal administrative regulation (including deregulation and re-regulation) of electronic audio, video and data signals. We will begin by examining generally the powers, structure and decision making processes of the Federal Communications Commission, and the legal and political constraints within which it operates. The course will then sample the rich array of issues requiring FCC resolution with regard to broadcast radio and television, telephones, and cable systems. Among the topics to be covered are policies for managing the electromagnetic spectrum; administrative hearings, lotteries, and auctions as alternative methods for assigning broadcast licenses; the fairness doctrine; children's TV programming; the regulation of broadcast network relations with producers and affiliated stations; the transition to digital television; the break-up of AT&T; the implementation of competition in the telephone and cable industries; compelled access and "must-carry" rules for cable systems operators; and the control of indecent speech in different communications media. The emphasis will be less on mastering the details of current law - details that will surely continue to evolve because of the incredible dynamism of the telecommunications industry - and more on identifying the issues that Congress, the FCC and the courts have had to confront in each of these areas and assessing the social and economic analyses that have led to past and present policies. Evaluation will be based on an exam, class participation, and two written memoranda students will prepare during the course of the semester.