Telecommunications Law

Catalog description

Provide students with a broad understanding of the national, regional, and global legal regimes that regulate wireless communications ("telecommunications"), both terrestrial and space-based. Students will study the history of how regulations and policies intertwine economics and the law in an attempt to keep pace alongside ever-evolving technology, and how that is handled differently around the world. A comparison of national regimes will be studied, with an emphasis on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Nations grapple with common policy issues (such as competition, universal access, and national security), but they respond differently - and every nation must fit their domestic regime to the wider regional and global frameworks. Classes will be open and active discussions of the issues surrounding these topics and provide a comparative look at the ways different countries develop telecommunications policy and regulations.