You are here "National" broadband policy a stalking horse for regulating Internet
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-05-10 12:03
Watch out when Big Government advocates call for a "national" anything!
- House Telecom Chairman Ed Markey is calling for a "national broadband map."
- Senator Rockefeller (WV) and others are calling for a "national broadband plan."
Egads!
A "national broadband plan" is a codeword for a 1970's-style government "industrial policy" where the government decides what technologies consumers get and which companies will succeed of fail.
My first big problem with this "national" thinking is that there is no national broadband problem.
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The US has more facilites-based broadband deployment, investment and competition nationally than any other country -- by a wide margin.
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Is deployment perfect nationwide? of course not.
My second big problem is Senator Rockefeller's call for a new "national" goal of 10Mbps broadband by 2010 and 100 Mbps by 2015.
By arbitrarliy choosing speeds and arbitrarily setting timetables for deployment, the government is setting itself up to take a much more proactive and interventionist role in heavily regulating and managing broadband competition into a utility-like system.
Watch out when Big Government advocates call for "national" anything.
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