Washington Post Opposes Net Neutrality

June 14, 2006 by Mary Wynne-Wynter 

Washington Post Opposes Net Neutrality: "

networkaccess.jpgIn advance of tomorrow’s Senate hearings, the Washington Post has this editorial
in today’s paper that basically comes out against net neutrality.  The
editorial makes a good bottom-line point regarding the negative acts
that might occur absent net neutrality regulations:  these woes-to-come
are fundamentally speculative.  Nothing bad has happened yet.

The weakest aspect of the neutrality case is that the
dangers it alleges are speculative. It seems unlikely that broadband
providers will degrade Web services that people want and far more
likely that they will use non-neutrality to charge for upgrading
services that depend on fast and reliable delivery, such as streaming
high-definition video or relaying data from heart monitors. If this
proves wrong, the government should step in. But it should not burden
the Internet with preemptive regulation.

But, the editorial writers made a truly laughable gaffe by writing

The advocates of neutrality suggest, absurdly, that a
non-neutral Internet would resemble cable TV: a medium through which
only corporate content is delivered. This analogy misses the fact that
the market for Internet connections, unlike that for cable television,
is competitive: More than 60 percent of Zip codes in the United States
are served by four or more broadband providers that compete to give
consumers what they want — fast access to the full range of Web sites,
including those of their kids’ soccer league, their cousins’ photos,
MoveOn.org and the Christian Coalition.

The Post, which owns one of the top ten cable companies in
the country, CableOne, can’t really believe the market for broadband
services is competitive, can it?  I think not.  This line is straight
out of the cable industry’s talking point papers that it circulates to
members.

The other gaffe:  relying on FCC data to say that more than 60% of
zip codes are served by more than four broadband providers.  Ha ha ha.
That’s funny. 

Number one, the FCC counts any broadband provider as serving an
entire zip code if it only serves one home in that zip code, a fact
that drives the Commission itself to warn that the data are not helpful
for determining competition in the broadband sector.

Number two, as Tim Karr points
out, the GAO has pooped on the FCC’s data and has determined that most
consumers can choose from, at most, two broadband providers.  That’s a
duopoly, not competition.

Number three, even if broad zip code-level network provider data
were appropriate, the data reported by the Commission is wrong more
than it’s right, something that work-a-day communications attorneys say
they deal with all the time.

Number four, who do you know, outside of, maybe, Manhattan, that
actually can choose from among four broadband providers?  Nobody, I
suspect.

"

(Via IP Democracy.)

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