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There Isn't Enough Broadband Market Choice to Prevent Bad Actors

Firechick907's picture

The

network owners have argued that Network Neutrality is unnecessary because there

is sufficient competition in the broadband market to deter bad behavior. They argue

that if Verizon degraded access to a site or discriminated against the use of

one service in favor of another, they would anger customers who would move to another

network operators in the area.


Consumers must have robust competition and multiple choices for this theory to

work.   But such competition does not exist,

and it isn’t likely to exist in the foreseeable future.


Most Americans have access to two broadband providers — cable and DSL. That’s

it. These two systems dominate, holding over 98 percent of the residential broadband

market. The share of the market held by all the other broadband technologies

combined — satellite, fixed wireless, mobile wireless, and broadband over power

lines — has actually decreased

over the last few years.


A significant chunk of the

country has only one broadband provider, and 10 of millions of Americans have

none at all. This is hardly a competitive market. There is insufficient

competition between different technologies to produce any kind of deterrent

should one operator block our access to the free flowing Internet.


And if both the local cable and telephone companies are using their networks to

discriminate, the consumer is trapped. There is nowhere else to go.


That’s why nondiscrimination through Net Neutrality is so critical. Without

Network Neutrality, America 's

telephone and cable duopoly will leverage its market power over the network to

gain control over the content and application markets, establishing a handful

of wireline companies as the gatekeepers of the Internet.

Comments

Benjamin Tuttle's picture

Re-frame the Question

The issue is not whether we should regulate neutrality on the internet because many Americans don't have a choice. The issue is that we don't HAVE internet choice. There is no compelling reason at this point for governments to be imposing monopoly via cable and telephone "utilities" on the public. Europe is doing quite well without that regulation, as is most of the rest of the world.

tnt533's picture

Foster Competition not Handcuffing Regulation

I couldn't agree with you more. The real issue here is a lack of competition to allow the Free Market to work as intended. This is changing however. Sprint's acquisition of Clear Inc. is a great example of how emerging technology is changing the landscape. Clear Inc. is in the process of a national roll out of WiMax technology that will connect thousands of customers to the Internet at broadband speeds using a single wireless access-point and is positioned to enter any market no matter the existing network. WiMax technology has a theoretical wireless range of over 100 miles and can provide speeds that more than compete with Comcast, Cox and AT&T.

Concerned Citizen's picture

Re: Re-frame the Question

Network Neutrality should be a cornerstone of the Internet. It is born out of the principle of 'Common Carrier' during the days of the Telecom giants. Telecommunications companies were given monopolies over the physical resources (telephone poles/lines) in exchange for maintaining certain levels of service. Now when the internet came along the Telecom companies were in the best position to deliver the internet to the masses. Just because the information transmitted has changed does not mean that the original deal should change as well.

Europe is also doing well because there is strong competition in their markets.