A post on the general PFF blog describes a recent speech made by FCC Commissioner Katherine Abernathy entitled The Role of Property Rights in Understanding Telecommunications Regulation.

She noted that wireless has been organized into two distinct categories: a property rights model with little regulation for licensed spectrum and a commons model for unlicensed spectrum, and that both are a success. Wireline, on the other hand, has been characterized by a regulatory regime that treats property rights as malleable at the regulatory whim, and the industry and the public have suffered accordingly.