The new FCC report on U.S. broadband competition provides powerful real world evidence that broadband competition is increasing and vibrant -- seriously undermining the assertion of neutrality-ites that a “broadband duopoly” exists and that the broadband market is failing.
Let’s look at some powerful new broadband competition facts in the FCC report.
There were 2.75 million
new mobile wireless new high speed additions in the 2H05, which means
mobile wireless, (a DSL/cable competitive alternative) comprised 35% of all new 2H05 high-speed additions in the U.S., compared to 41% for DSL (3.2m) and 20% for cable modems(1.6m). (
see table 1, “High Speed Lines” page 3 of FCC report.)
- These data strongly suggest that high speed mobile wireless is now a faster growing broadband competitive alternative than either DSL or cable modems. The same table 1 shows that mobile wireless grew over 800% in the last six months of 2005! Table 16 shows that that growth is even more impressive because it came from less than half of the zip codes in the US. We also know from public statements, that over the last year, more wireless carriers have deployed more high-speed mobile wireless infrastructure in more zip codes than ever before. (This all suggests that high-speed mobile wireless additions could comprise an even larger share of overall broadband additions than 35% in the FCC’s next report six months from now.)
- Competition experts look to new additions (forward-looking dynamism) to determine the competitiveness of a marketplace -- not (backward-looking static market shares.) These recent FCC data are powerful evidence of an increasingly-strong, forward-looking, broadband-competitive dynamic.
· In 2005, the number of zip codes with 3 or more competitive broadband providers increased 21%, from 67% of all zip codes to 81% of all zip codes.
· In 2005, the number of zip codes with 5 or more competitive broadband providers increased 35%, from 39% of all zip codes to 53% of all zip codes.
· In 2005, the number of zip codes with 10 or more competitive broadband providers increased 62%, from 13% of all zip codes to 21% of all zip codes.
· Moreover, the number of zip codes where there were no broadband providers at all fell from 4.6% of all zip codes at the end of 2004 to 1% of all zip codes at the end of 2005. Market forces are producing more supply: in the number of competitors serving a market and in the numbers of markets served.
These data are powerful in debunking neutrality-ites unsupported assertions that competition and market forces are not working in broadband.
It will be interesting to see if neutrality-ites ignore these new facts and/or how they will attempt to “spin them” away.
