The (Not So) Free Market

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the U.S. has sunk to 25th in a global ranking of Internet speeds, just behind Romania.

Why? Because our nation's regulators abandoned an earlier commitment to foster competition in the marketplace for Internet access providers.

In the years that followed the signing of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, lobbyists working for powerful providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon pressured a compliant FCC to tear down all of the important safeguards established by Congress.

Under the Bush administration, the FCC tossed out competitive broadband safeguards such as open-access requirements, which opened lines to other providers. In 2002 the agency declared that high-speed cable Internet access would no longer be considered a telecommunications service that opened the network to competitors, but rather an “information service” that did not. Following a 2005 court decision, the FCC also reclassified broadband delivered by the phone companies as an “information service.”

These were radical policy shifts that went against the long-held assumption that open communications in competitive markets were essential to economic growth and innovation.
~ from Welcome to Your Hungarian Internet by Tim Karr ~

Here's a little secret: Capitalists hate regulation unless, of course, it fattens the bottom line at the expense of consumers. Here's another little secret: Capitalists demand they be given the opportunity to compete in the marketplace until they become the big dogs and then they look to government to restrict competition from others.

And the biggest secret of all is also the worst. Anytime an industry gets behind legislation and tells the public that said legislation will make things better for all, the all they mean is them, not us!