Christopher Ali

Very happy with this lovely collaboration and its outcome @christopherali.bsky.social @jonkropko.bsky.social

We examine the evolving political economy of the U.S. wireless communications market through a case study of the 2020T-Mobile/Sprint merger. Drawing on industry data from the Global Media & Internet Concentration Project and policy documents from the merger review, we show how the merging parties and regulators worked to construct the perception of competition to justify the transaction's approval despite clear evidence of oligopolistic concentration. We conceptualize this strategy as performative competition, involving regulators downplaying antitrust concerns, reframing consumer harms, and emphasizing speculative promises of 5G deployment to approve a corporate merger. We argue that performative competition is an increasingly necessary regulatory strategy, which emerges from policymakers’ neoliberal deference to dominant industry actors in a political economy marked by the growing consolidation of wireless markets; entails an increasing decoupling of communications policymaking from regulatory empirical analysis; and fulfills a discursive policy function of legitimating policy decisions to policy stakeholders.

New piece out with @christopherali.bsky.social @sydneyforde.bsky.social @theine.bsky.social examining the shifting terrain of US wireless competition policy via the T-Mobile / Sprint merger, and noting "performative competition" supplanting empirical analysis.
journals.sagepub.com/eprint/ZB3CG...

Bridging the Digital Divide in the US: Planning Innovative State and Local Approaches Published in Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice (Ahead of Print, 2025)

Pioneers Chair @christopherali.bsky.social reviews "Bridging the Digital Divide in the US: Planning Innovative State and Local Approaches." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Congratulations @abigailspanberger.com @teamspanberger.bsky.social for being elected #Virginia ‘s next governor! It was an honor to meet you when we worked on bringing #broadband to rural VA a few years ago! Now even more excited to brief members of the VA assembly this morning about broadband!

An honor to present research from my new book project @yaleisp.bsky.social yesterday! An amazing and brilliant group of scholars! Thank you!!!

Roth: No State Net Neutrality, Affordability Laws for BEAD Participants She said grantees would also have to forgo federal opex subsidies like the USF.

Does the NTIA even have the authority to exempt BEAD winners from state laws? Not that this administration really cares about jurisdiction or authority, but if the NTIA doesn’t have preemption power, states better sue.
broadbandbreakfast.com/roth-no-stat...

Congratulations Dr. Lincoln!!!

Episode 442: Real Talk on Rural Broadband with Dr. Christopher Ali Play Episode 442: Real Talk on Rural Broadband with Dr. Christopher Ali by The Broadband Bunch on desktop and mobile. Play over 320 million tracks for free on SoundCloud.

Loved being part of the Broadband Bunch podcast to talk about my new book in progress!

m.soundcloud.com/broadband-bu...

Writing a book is equal parts terror and elation. There is no middle ground.

Thank you!!

Can I just say that I am so very proud of the graduate students that I have the privilege to worth with @pennstateuniv.bsky.social. They are brilliant, they are diligent, and they are caring. #ica25 @ica-clp.bsky.social

Is the Federal Communications Commission Out of Commission? For the first time that anyone can remember, the agency lacks a legal quorum to do business.

If you wanted to read 2,000-plus words on the FCC's ability to conduct any more business with only two of its five commissioners in office--look, you know who you are!--Public Knowledge's @haroldfeld.bsky.social has once again risen to the occasion.

People, Power, Praxis: A Critical Qualitative Reminder to Policy Scholars and Makers | Canadian Journal of Communication Background: This article reflects on the crucial contribution of critical qualitative research in communication policymaking. Analysis: This article draws on previous and current projects that use cri...

A day before the start of @icahdq.bsky.social, I'm pleased to announce the publication of my article in the Canadian Journal of Communication on "People, Power, and Praxis: A critical qualitative reminder to policy scholars" @ica-clp.bsky.social
Check it out!
cjc.utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/...

I was thinking the exact same thing!

The changes to broadband policy are doing serious harm to our communities (esp. low income and BIPOC communities) - it robs them of their voices and of their digital futures by replacing long term security with short term and incomplete connectivity.

www.ntia.gov/press-releas...

"Congress said we have to build broadband everywhere, so we’ll build what is barely adequate for today and ignore what’s needed for the future". I couldn't agree more!

So happy about this excellend collaboration with @christopherali.bsky.social and @jonkropko.bsky.social - and thank you @mjanssen.bsky.social at Current for the opportunity #pbs #publicmedia

Study shows Americans trust PBS precisely because it’s publicly funded - Current A study finds that "Americans from across the political spectrum do not subscribe to the notion of a biased PBS."

More about Pioneers Chair @christopherali.bsky.social's research on trust in public media, coauthored with Hilde Van den Bulck & Jonathan Kropko. current.org/2025/06/stud...

Study shows Americans trust PBS precisely because it’s publicly funded - Current A study finds that "Americans from across the political spectrum do not subscribe to the notion of a biased PBS."

Exciting news today! This morning @hildevdb.bsky.social @jonkropko.bsky.social and I published an article in Current - the premiere publication for public media - about our research on trust and @pbs.org!!

current.org/2025/06/stud...

a cartoon of homer simpson with a monkey in his mind ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson with a monkey in his mind

It’s what gets my brain fired up to do all the brain stuff I need to do

Confession: I know how well my day will go based on how well I complete the wordle, quordle, octordle, and crossword each morning

Huge congratulations to my friends at the Hoopa Valley Public Utility District/Acorns Wireless for winning the Seven Star Community Award at this year’s #netinclusion! Bravo! So well deserved!! #ndia

I’m so excited to be heading the Gila River Indian Community today to attend #netinclusion2025 #ndia! Three days of nerding it up with all things #digitalequity and #digitalinclusion!

Trust cuts both ways: Why public media must go local and digital or fade away - Editor and Publisher Just because people trust public media doesn’t mean they use it. For all the “trust” people express in PBS, the audience size for the flagship PBS Newshour declined by 9% from 2020 to 2022. Other repo...

An article in E&P from Bellisario faculty Tom Davidson about research coauthored by Pioneers Chair @christopherali.bsky.social -- with Hilde Van Den Bulck & Jonathan Kropko -- of people's trust in public broadcasting. www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/trus...

Cablepalooza: Charter and Cox strike $34.5B merger Charter and Cox have agreed to combine in a deal that values privately held Cox at $34.5 billion. The combo stands to create the largest US cable operator with 69.5 million locations passed and 37.6 m...

As if cable provision couldn't become more concentrated in this country, now Charter and Cox are merging. The #FCC needs to stop its discriminatory witch hunt against DEI initiatives and start doing its actual job and protecting the public interest. #ugh

www.lightreading.com/cable-techno...

Broadband Heroes | Ep. 44 | Reimagining Broadband Through Stories with Dr. Christopher Ali YouTube video by BROADBAND HEROES

Honored to have been part of the #BroadbandHeroes podcast from Bonfire Infrastructure Group where I got to jump on my soapbox to support digital equity and inclusion, including universal, affordable broadband!
#digitalequity

m.youtube.com/watch?si=t6q...

Huge congratulations @erikasolis.bsky.social (Dr. Solis) for passing their dissertation defense yesterday and for writing a brilliant dissertation on the political economy of microtransactions. So proud of you!!!

Small broadband providers offer mobility services via 'Smart Towns' The Smart Town initiative was begun by the vendor CalixIt’s a way to provide Wi-Fi roaming throughout small communitiesBy offering a | A few small broadband providers have banded together in a Smart T...

www.fierce-network.com/broadband/sm...

This is really interesting!

Senate Votes to Repeal Biden FCC’s Wi-Fi Hotspots Rule House companion effort led by Rep. Fulcher expected to move next.

Shame on the republican congress for repealing this #fcc decision (still needs to go through the house). But where are the democrats defending bringing broadband to school kids?

broadbandbreakfast.com/senate-votes...