This week our readings delve into the state’s role in network regulation. In some pieces (consider those by Alexis de Toqueville, Steven Vogel and Niko Waesche), our authors examine regulatory issues from a comparative perspective. They try to identify differences between national regulatory structures, and then offer explanations for why these differences exist/persist. How is network regulation in Japan and Germany actually different than that in the United States?

In reading these pieces, focus not only on what each author believes the differences are (a good place to start is Vogel’s four part typology and his emphasis on the difference between deregulation and reregulation) but also why states gravitate towards different policies. Why did British policy-makers drift towards deregulation but Japanese ones to reregulation? In Democracy in America, Alexis de Toqueville identifies a different set of factors: what are they and how might they lead him to different conclusions than Vogel were he alive today and also writing on telecommunications reform? Read the Waesche and Salus pieces for the European story.

The second main theme this week is a much more specific one: it concerns the history of landline network regulation in the United States. In The Fall of the Bell System, Peter Temin provides an excellent historical overview of deregulation efforts in the 1980s and earlier. You should be familiar with this story – also touched on by Lessig – because it is very often invoked by those who wish to make arguments about the appropriate role of government policy towards the current and next generation of networking technologies. As the readings assigned from the popular press indicate, there already a degree of international differentiation here. What are the key differences? Who takes the initiative? Who are the key players? What roles do users of broadband services play? What roles do governments play? What might explain the differences between the U.S. and France in this area? Can we find an explanation for the different behavior today in de Toqueville's observations 150 years ago?

In this spirit, consider "Access and Innovation Policy for the Third-Generation Internet" by Bar, Cohen et. aliae. What do these authors recommend be American policy towards broadband? What do they believe followed the deregulation of Bell monopoly, and why? How do they seek to replicate these benefits in the broadband space. What specific policies are they arguing against, and why?