Former Clinton Administration Official Says U. S. Broadband Is Good Party Due To Competition

See The Myth of America's Inferior Broadband: Access to faster networks in the U.S. is greater than in Europe, where regulations have discouraged investment by EV EHRLICH today's WSJ. Ehrlich is a former undersecretary of commerce under the Clinton administration. Excerpts:

"...  U.S. broadband is a major success."

"...international speed rankings, has the U.S. currently at No. 9, up from No. 22 in 2009—faster than in France, Germany and Britain."

"...the U.S. has the second-lowest entry-level broadband prices (behind Israel) in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development..."

"...U.S. broadband companies have invested $250 billion in Internet upgrades since the recession began in 2008."

"...Europe, where in most countries Internet service providers lease aging wires from incumbent, often state-sanctioned telephone companies."

"...because the ISPs do not own the underlying infrastructure, they have no incentive to invest in it."

"In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress recognized that existing local phone companies had a serious advantage over potential competitors since they were the only providers with wires going into homes. So Congress mandated that those companies provide their competitors access to their systems at low, government-mandated prices..."

"This seemed great—except that neither the DSL providers nor the incumbent phone companies had any incentive to invest and innovate. As a result, the U.S. started falling behind.

The exception was the cable industry, which wasn't covered by the common-carriage mandate. Cable companies such as Comcast and Time Warner began investing heavily in high-speed networks."

 

"In 2004, the Federal Communications Commission and the courts ended the mandatory leasing regime,..."

 

"It was only then that fiber entered the broadband picture."

 

"The results of these two competing models are now apparent. In the U.S., 85% of households have access to wired broadband networks capable of speeds of 100 megabits per second. By contrast, just half of Europeans get service that meets or exceeds 30 Mbps.

Why the disparity? Because the U.S. is one of two nations on the planet—the other is South Korea—that has three different and fully deployed broadband technologies:"

 

"...some U.S. critics want to bring back European-style regulations, including the policy of common carriage.

 

They would do well to listen to regulators in Europe, who have overseen this kind of regulation and say it doesn't work."