Rosenworcel: T-Mobile, Sprint Have 'Hard Case' to Make on Combo, 'Going from 4 to 3'

questions Thursday from NBC News Senior Tech Editor Jason Abbruzzese at the Collision Conference in New Orleans (Facebook webcast). "Going from four to three [national wireless competitors] is a hard case," she said. Rosenworcel criticized recent FCC media ownership changes that "seemed custom-built for one company," Sinclair, which is seeking to buy Tribune: "We shouldn't be playing favorites." She said the FCC was on the "wrong side" of the law, history and the American people in rolling back Title II net neutrality regulation under the Communications Act. But the action "awoke a sleeping giant, because the American public wasn't going to stand for" the agency "mucking around" with internet freedom. "I don't think the story's over," she said, citing two new state net neutrality laws, five state executive orders, 23 state attorneys general challenging the FCC's order in court and 50 votes in the U.S. Senate to undo the order through a Congressional Review Act disapproval resolution. While supporting net neutrality, Rosenworcel said policymakers need to find a "balance" that encourages broadband investment because "it's expensive to deploy networks. That's a real impediment for a lot of companies and a lot of communities." She said she's hopeful blockchain technology could contribute to "dynamically distributing spectrum," rather than simply assigning it to two different categories: exclusive, licensed uses and open, unlicensed uses.