$10 billion for broadband ignores real problem: government-enabled duopoly
[America] ranks 15th in the world for broadband penetration. For those who do have access to broadband, the average speed is a crawl, moving bits at a speed roughly one-tenth that of top-ranked Japan.
…[N]othing in the [$10 billion government handout] would address the key reason that the U.S. lags so far behind other countries… an effective broadband duopoly in the U.S., with most communities able to choose only between one cable company and one telecom carrier. It’s this lack of competition, blessed by national, state and local politicians, that keeps prices up and services down.
In contrast, most other advanced countries have numerous providers, using many technologies, competing for consumers. A recent report by the Pew Research Center entitled “Stimulating Broadband: If Obama Builds It, Will They Log On?” concluded that for many people, the answer is no, often due to high monthly prices. By one estimate, the lowest monthly price per standard unit of millions of bits per second is nearly $3 in the U.S., versus about 13 cents in Japan and 33 cents in France…
What we need to get the U.S. back into the top ranks of wired countries is more competition, not taxpayer handouts.
Posted by James on Wednesday, February 11, 2009