“This [60-day] deadline is appropriate in light of the Commission’s failure, after eight years, to develop lawful unbundling rules, and its apparent unwillingness to adhere to prior judicial rulings.” – Final sentence in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia’s 2004 opinion overturning FCC rules on telephone competition

The DC Court of Appeals’ verbal guillotine on federal efforts to create “wholesale” vs. “retail” phone service competition should be a timely reminder to anyone entranced by Google’s siren song urging same kind of federal rules for wireless broadband.

Like a bad Hollywood sequel, Google seems hellbent on pushing Congress and the FCC into making the same mistakes that delayed investment and caused thousands of lost jobs in the phone industry over the past decade.

Let’s go back to those thrilling days of yesteryear: Entire forests were sacrificed to produce the paper necessary for all the NPRMs, court and regulatory filings, amicus briefs, FCC orders, lawsuits, stays, more FCC orders, more lawsuits, and more stays – all in an eight-year adventure in the pointlessness of federally managed “retail” competition. As Adam Thierer at PFF notes, the three FCC attempts at creating regulated wholesale vs. retail “competition” alone totaled 1,575 pages and included 6,770 footnotes. Incidentally, let’s remember that in 2004, the ink was barely dry on a 576-page FCC “competition” plan – its third try! – when the DC Appeals Court struck it down.

As usual, Holman Jenkins has pegged this issue perfectly, though candidly we’re not sure if he’s trying to invoke an image from the old “Kung Fu” TV series or from the climax of “Return of the Jedi”. One thing is certain: With our economy dependent on broadband investment, Google’s plan for new wireless regulation is a loser for everyone except, not surprisingly, Google.