As state legislative sessions begin to close, states continue to modernize their regulation of the communications industry. Recognizing that decades-old regulations are no longer appropriate, states are eliminating requirements, simplifying governing structures, and otherwise making it possible for companies to compete with each other on near-level playing fields as they try to please consumers with new products, new services, and competitive prices.
As broadband is being rolled out, it gives consumers and businesses not only new products and services, but also introduces new competition in phone service, Internet access and video service.
In a typical market today, consumers can choose to purchase video and broadband services from two different satellite providers, a cable provider, and often from one or more “phone companies” such as Verizon, AT&T and Qwest or from hundreds of smaller, regional phone companies.
This competition is real—not some artificial competition created through government regulation. The private investment companies have made in broadband networks in the last few years dwarfs the admittedly large amounts that the federal government is spending this year on broadband, and will continue to dwarf federal expenditures on an ongoing basis. So, among the benefits of deregulation is the enormous job-creating and network-building investment made by private companies, with no demand on the taxpayer.
But at the very time that the benefits of deregulation are becoming apparent all around the country, the new administration is being urged to turn back the clock on over a decade of progress, and actually re-regulate the broadband industry.
In fact, the ideological magnum opus from left-leaning Free Press is blatantly titled “Dismantling Digital Deregulation,” and in it the author spends over 100 pages arguing that virtually everything that’s been done in communications policy over the last ten years was wrong and should be reversed.
Free Press is apparently more interested in going back and fighting old ideological fights, instead of recognizing the tremendous progress that has been made in rolling out broadband, all of which was done with private risk capital.
As the administration formulates its broadband strategy, policymakers should resist being pulled into an old fight over unbundling, and rather should ask how do we continue to roll out to consumers and businesses the bandwidth they need for the things they want to do. And how do we do so in a way that builds upon and leverages, rather than devalues, the strength of our privately financed and increasingly competitive communications infrastructure.