"Things are a mess everywhere," said Simon Wilkie, who runs the Center for Communication Law and Policy at the University of Southern California. "The regulatory structure is falling apart for the same reasons in every country," he said.

But the U.K. independent telecom regulator Ofcom is a good model, he said. Columbia Business School economist Eli Noam agreed, saying Ofcom has the requisite "intellectual leadership" to get things done and is "less driven by the political process."