NCTA is not an ideological entity when it comes to the discussion of free market solutions versus government solutions. In fact, just last week the association’s president posted a video explaining the industry’s position on government’s role in promoting broadband deployment and adoption.

There is most certainly a role for the federal government in promoting broadband.

However, let me address some of the points you made, and why they’re simply not accurate.

The US has fallen from 4th to 15th in terms of percentage of the population which has broadband internet access because our internet services aren’t nationalized and/or under enough government regulation.

Actually, the reason we have slipped from 4th to 15th has just as much to do with the flawed metrics being used to make that comparison. I wrote extensively on this problem last year. If every country reached 100% adoption, the US would still be ranked 20th due to several factors which skew the results – including household size, inclusion/exclusion of T-1 lines and business connections, etc.

Would you rather live in Japan where the maximum bandwidth is 1000 MB/s or the US where the maximum is 50 MB/s?

I also wrote about the myth of Japanese broadband. While it is true that they have services available at those speeds, the majority of the country can do no better than DSL. The cost also ends up being more than is typically claimed since you must purchase your connection and your access separately.

I doubt any public telecommunications company would ever consider cutting the bandwidth for Peer-to-Peer activities like Comcast did. I doubt that net neutrality would even be an issue if we had a nationalized system.

That’s a claim that many like to make, but one that just doesn’t fly. As an example, take your average college campus. Campuses are probably the closest thing to the model of nationalized broadband with connections to all students made available on an equal basis.

However, college campuses, just like private networks, have exactly the same problem with network congestion because some users consume more of the available bandwidth than others. Many ban P2P applications entirely, but all employ management techniques similar to those employed by corporations. Those campuses have no economic incentive to protect, so how do you explain their use of the same methods?

The fact is, the management of networks and the challenges with provision of broadband services are not a myth created by evil corporations. They are common problems facing all network operators and ones the cable industry is working hard to solve.

You guys seem to have an irrational fear of the government, without realizing that governments are composed of their citizenry and they reflect both the virtues and faults of their citizens. If the citizens are lazy and passive, governments mismanage and abuse their power, but in countries where the citizenry take an active role and demand results from their governments, they get better services at a cheaper cost. Would you rather live in Japan where the maximum bandwidth is 1000 MB/s or the US where the maximum is 50 MB/s? I would take government intervention any day, because if the government abuses its power, citizenry have recourse through our democratic system (as lacking as that may be). If a private company abuses its power, it is much harder to do anything about it and the private company has no interest in the general public welfare–only its bottom line.

I doubt any public telecommunications company would ever consider cutting the bandwidth for Peer-to-Peer activities like Comcast did. I doubt that net neutrality would even be an issue if we had a nationalized system. What I am sure is that people in underserved rural and urban poor communities would have much better access to the internet. If you guys really believe that the private sector has done such a stellar job of connecting people to the internet, how do you explain the fact that those private companies actively lobbied to stop public Wireless internet like Philadelphia has in communities across the country. A nationalized telecoms company wouldn’t dare do that kind of lobbying and if it did, the citizen outrage would quickly stop it. In contrast nobody seems to be nailing Comcast, AT&T, etc to the wall for their atrocious lobbying, because we expect private companies to act against the public interest.

Nationalization is no panacea, but when you have a functioning democracy which can curb any potential abuses, it works much better than loosely regulated privatized systems. Frankly, I don’t understand the paranoia about the government from free market ideologues, yet the the myopia and downright blindness toward private sector abuses.

http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202422769174&rss=ltn

http://scrawford.net/blog/it-costs-more/1203/

Well, where I used to live I actually had 5 options for electricity service. I had ONE wire to my home….and I could pick from one of FIVE companies to provide electricity. A generic maintenance company maintained the wires but the power could be bought from many companies.

Not the case where I am now, but the idea is the same. And the “size” of the product is of no matter. The ideas is the same. They have a captive audience SOLELY BASED ON ACCESS not on quality of product or service…

And here is your wonderful telecom companies now SUING small cities that are left out and now building their own broadband system. Dont want that competition that would be open.

http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202422769174&rss=ltn

I guess we will have to part on different takes on this. Im a Net Neutality, open source guy. Open wired with access to all the providers. Not the walled of garden stuff. For craps sake some of the new Sony TV will stream content….but ONLY from Sony. Not gonna happen at my house. thanks

Why do you think the Media companies want to force manufacturers to do the removal of the analog outputs on your TV. So you cant tape anything. They have wanted to get around the 1970’s Sony Betamax decision and have complete control of the hardware also.

Sony is especially dangerous…they are both a content maker and a hardware maker. Guess whose content you will have wonderful access to on your Sony TV. Any takers on this one.

The road analogy is actually pretty poor for the simple reason that roads require a huge amount of space, and as a result running multiple road systems managed by private owners is impractical. Given the wide array of possible ways to deliver broadband either in use or under development (wi-max, BPL, satellite, HFC, FTTH, etc) space isn’t the same kind of limitation. As a result, Ken’s question stands. Do you propose to seize satellite systems for delivering broadband? What about BPL? Are you going to halt all development of other technologies since those would be other “roads” to your house?

This company would be solely a wire management co with no service allowed of any kind. Then turn all the telcos and cablecos loose to provide and invent any service they can come up with.

Lets use your Road analogy.

I dont want any CONTENT or SERVICE to own the road to my home. That is all im interested in. The same as I dont want FORD to own the road.

Currently, yes the gov owns the road, but that is being changed in many states and they are being sold as toll roads. But I can use ANY vehicle from any manufacturer. and the price is the same other than fees for larger vehicles

We can sell the roads to private people as is being done now in a lot of states. But would YOU let GM own the road and control what car gets to drive on it. Or perhaps charge you more to drive your Ford on it.

Not good. I want access to the wires as a utility.

But if the woderful Telco and Cableco want to open up their wires at wholesale rates to all comers ….then lets roll.

I don’t see how the distinction between a subsidy and an incentive. Each can still provide benefit to the organization. However, that is not completely my point.

The numbers from Pew are interesting, and for once I don’t think we need to argue about how the numbers were obtained; versus our OCED debates. Touching back on the unserved and under served, do those labels include low-income families that seem to be loosing (slightly) connectivity? Are we only providing incentives for new ‘pipes’ or also new users?

Cheers!