---
title: "To Do: Reform the FCC’s Merger Review Process"
summary: |-
  Congress should reform the FCC’s merger review process to add specificity to the public-interest standard.
date: "2007-10-19"
issues: ["Antitrust", "Broadband Access and Regulation"]
content_type: "Knowledge Base Articles"
canonical_url: "https://itif.org/publications/2007/10/19/to-do-reform-the-fccs-merger-review-process/"
---

# To Do: Reform the FCC’s Merger Review Process

# Recommendation

Congress should reform the FCC’s merger review process to add specificity to the public-interest standard.

# Details

The FCC reviews telecommunications mergers under the notoriously squishy public-interest standard, leading to an unpredictable process and, occasionally, the appearance of transactional conditions drawn out of merging parties. Congress should add more specificity to the public-interest standard in the context of merger review. That should include a requirement that the FCC evaluate a merger’s impact on dynamic innovation.

**Keep reading:**

- Robert D. Atkinson, “The Role of Competition in a National Broadband Policy” (ITIF, October 2007), [https://itif.org/publications/2007/10/07/role-competition-national-broadband-policy](https://itif.org/publications/2007/10/07/role-competition-national-broadband-policy).

---
*Source: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)*
*URL: https://itif.org/publications/2007/10/19/to-do-reform-the-fccs-merger-review-process/*