Declan McCullagh’s article advocating the abolition of the FCC is a must-read, even if you disagree with him (for the record, I don’t). In fact, he argues that the FCC may now be downright counterproductive:
Consider some examples of bureaucratic malfeasance that the FCC, with the complicity of the U.S. Congress, has committed. The FCC rejected long-distance telephone service competition in 1968, banned Americans from buying their own non-Bell telephones in 1956, dragged its feet in the 1970s when considering whether video telephones would be allowed and did not grant modern cellular telephone licenses until 1981–about four decades after Bell Labs invented the technology. Along the way, the FCC has preserved monopolistic practices that would have otherwise been illegal under antitrust law.
In fact, ask yourself this: what would happen if we had a Fred Kahn-style elimination of the FCC a la the abolition of the CAB?