So I'm not a lawyer and can't provide the insight of, say, Harold Feld, but I'd like to draw attention to the recent lawsuit by Verizon against the FCC.

If you haven't been following the case, Verizon has sued the FCC, alleging that the FCC's decision to require open access on a part of the spectrum up for auction soon is "arbitrary and capricious" and should be struck down.

What a load of crap.

Again: I'm not a lawyer. But here's how I see it: first of all, Verizon needs to understand that property is a right of exclusive use, not of sovereignty. Which is to say, just because the government has allowed you to own something doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it. If you own a gun, and you own a house, that doesn't mean that when someone's in your house you can use your gun to shoot them. Government has a clear, established right to set boundaries on how you can use your property.

The FCC is the government body charged with managing things like spectrum for the public's convenience, interest, and necessity (or something like that, anyway). It's the body specifically authorized to make decisions about who gets to use spectrum and what they get to use it for. The FCC can say to a broadcaster, "here, you get this, but you have to use it to broadcast TV programming that isn't indecent," and that's allowed. There's no reason they can't tell a wireless carrier "you have to allow any devices on this spectrum," or whatever else.

And of course the FCC's decision isn't arbitrary. It's based on the regulatory history of POTS ("plain old telephone service"), where long ago the FCC decided that users should be able to attach anything non-harmful to the network (Carterphone), which allowed the Internet to evolve into what it's become today (thanks to modems).

And lastly: THE SPECTRUM ISN'T VERIZON'S PROPERTY ANYWAY! The FCC is merely auctioning off licenses to use that piece of the electromagentic spectrum. Officially, legelly, the spectrum belongs to the government (or the people, or the people's will as expressed thru the government, or something like that). Verizon (or any other bidder) is simply getting the rights to make use of that spectrum; it's not even really theirs. They don't even get all the privileges that come with "property rights" anyway.

Fling suit because the FCC has slapped some requirments on a slice of the 700Mhz spectrum just shows what a ridiculous sense of entitlement telecommunications companies like Verizon have.