Post Editors Get Slippery on the Facts
June 12th, 2006 by tkarrThe editorial writers at the Washington Post have built their Monday back-pager on a foundation of sand. In 800 words, they level an argument against Net Neutrality that uses meaningless data to paint a picture of robust competition in America’s broadband market.
Nothing could be less true.
The broadband ISP owners at the Washington Post (the Washinton Post Company owns Cable One, which provides internet, and cable modem services in midwestern, western, and southern states) want you to believe that consumers will simply take their business elsewhere when an existing provider blocks or slows content. The Post’s editors write:
“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 . . . If one broadband provider slowed access to fringe bloggers, the blogosphere would rise up in protest — and the provider would lose customers.”
They claim that competition in the broadband market will deter bad behavior by the likes of AT&T and Cable One. If these ISPs fiddled with content, customers would decamp in droves to a competing service.
If only this were true.
For customers to leave, they have to have somewhere else to go. But such choice doesn’t exist and won’t anytime in the foreseeable future.
The Post cites Federal Communications Commission data that “more than 60 percent of Zip codes in the United States are served by four or more broadband providers.” But the FCC itself warns that Zip-code information is not meant to be a measure of broadband deployment. The statistic quoted by the Post simply indicates that at least one broadband subscriber resides in a given Zip code, meaning that in 60 percent of the nations’ Zip codes, there are four broadband providers with at least one customer. The Post is implying that this statistic means that the broadband market is competitive, when in fact it is not.
A recent study by the Government Accountability Office confirms that the Zip-code metric is useless when measuring broadband deployment and competition. The GAO found that the median number of providers available to a given household is just two.
That’s right. Most Americans have access to two or less broadband providers. That’s all. Cable and DSL systems dominate, holding more than 98 percent of the broadband market. A significant chunk of the country has only one broadband provider available, and around 10 percent of households have none at all. (For more, read the Free Press, Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America report “Broadband Reality Check“)
Ours is hardly a competitive market. In fact, the share of the U.S. market held by all the other broadband technologies combined — satellite, fixed wireless, mobile wireless, and broadband over power lines — actually decreased over the past few years, according the FCC.
There simply is not enough competition between different technologies to produce any kind of deterrent to discrimination. Without Net Neutrality, the 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 giant companies as the gatekeepers of the Internet.
The consumer is trapped when both local cable and telephone companies use their networks to discriminate. And the executives of the largest of these firms have stated their intentions to do so.
So, where else is there to go?
The Post editors got it wrong. Coincidentally, it’s an error that serves their parent company well.
– ALSO: David Isenberg’s dismantling of the Post and Jeffrey Chester’s at the Center for Digital Democracy.
June 13th, 2006 at 5:12 am
Hmmm. I read the Editorial, and I noticed that the Post disclosed their ownership of cable properties as well as their ownership of content. Your link goes to, you know, a WEB SITE and that’s content. So they have interests on both sides of the question.
Now why is it that your commentary above only notes one of the two relevant facts about the Post’s financial interests? Is it because you were paid to write it and were only allowed to say what Free Press wanted you to say?
June 13th, 2006 at 6:14 am
How about addressing the point of the article? I’ll refresh your memory about its central theme:
Funny, that’s not what the House Judiciary Committee said, headed by James Sensenbrenner (R-WI). And it doesn’t even pass the smell test. Most Americans — 98% by the Judiciary Committee’s count — have 0, 1, or 2 choices for broadband.
I’m all for free markets… when there’s competition. Fact: there is almost no competition in last-mile connectivity and M&A activity like AT&T’s acquisition of BLS will make a bad situation even worse.
June 13th, 2006 at 6:26 am
Yes Richard. I am a brainless automaton, parroting the words of my master. And you? Hmmm.
The fact that Washington Post Company owns an ISP is relevant to this issue. The fact that they control content is also relevant. I deny neither of these facts despite your thin claim.
Under a discriminatory regime, the Washington Post Company stands to benefit on both fronts. One — they benefit as the owner of an ISP that can set up an extra line of tollbooths on the Internet. Two — they benefit as a large media company that can buy its way into a fast lane that bars inclusion by smaller bloggers, news sites and independent media makers.
All the better to stake their claim atop the new media landscape. Get rid of the dissenting views that so often call the Post to the mat for getting something wrong (My post above is an example of that).
Net Neutrality preserves the free and open Internet, whch has become a catalyst for new ideas and innovation. The discriminatory Internet that you favor creates a system that hands control of ideas and content to the large telephone and cable companies — and through them to big companies (like the Washington Post) that can afford their gatekeeper fees.
The real issue here is choice. The editorial in question sites bad data to make an argument that healthy competition exists in the broadband marketplace. This bad information underpins the Post’s entire argument.
I simply point out — using real sources — that the notion of competition is a myth. When the only broadband provider in town decides to discriminate, most consumers have nowhere else to turn. In instances where there is a second provider, it’s usually another major corporation (Cable or DSL) that also has opted to discriminate. The data tell the story.
So really, without Net Neutrality protections what choice do most consumers have? The Post’s argument is built upon a foundation of sand. I know that newspapers are not in the practice of issuing corrections to editorials. In this instance, though, they got it fundamentally wrong; perhaps it’s time for a retraction.
June 13th, 2006 at 8:26 am
[…] Mean time, Washington Post in its editorial revealed itself to the public that its Broadband network means a lot more than the principles behind the whole Net Neutrality battle. Read its twisted arguments revealed at ‘Post Editors Get Slippery on the Facts‘. […]
June 13th, 2006 at 10:05 am
The WhoIS record for handsoff.org shows that it is controlled by
“The Mercury Group”, a voice video and data systems provider, and “TSE Enterprises, LLC”, a professional internet campaigning company. You cannot comment on their blog, so I suppose that means they can’t have any dissenting opinions show up.
The WhoIS for savetheinternet.com shows it belongs to Doug Graven, owner of the “Graven Group”, a management consulting firm, and “Web Venturi”, an e-commerce provider. You can post on their blog, so I could easily disagree with them right there.
The fact that, firstly, the accusation that handsoff.org are affiliated with a data infrastructure builder - a company with close ties to the broadband industry - and secondly, that I can’t go on the site and tell them they’re full of shit (I actually know Gerry Faulhaber personally; his statements on that site are taken out of context), gives me the impression that they’re not exactly trustworthy.
Your petition has been signed. While I’m usually not for regulation, the Telcos apparently can’t exist without being regulated.