Telecom and Internet regulators often create policies that have effects opposite of what they intended, said Dr. George Ford, Phoenix Center chief economist, from the center stage at the recent PTC’19 conference.  

“Modern policy making is plagued by notions about competition,” he said. The point, Ford says, is that a small number of suppliers in fixed networks is the result of economic conditions, not a failure of policy. “If only two firms can profitably offer the service, then demanding more is wishful thinking and prone to produce bad policy,” he says.