The Debate We Should Be Having

[Comentary] In the United Kingdom, where there's more broadband available at higher speeds, the debate is about the failure of private companies to invest in facilities upgrades. In the US, the debate is about how and whether to provide incentive for private companies to invest. The “regulation is death” crowd will observe that while structural separation (separating the ownership of the broadband lines from the sale of retail services) may have brought the UK higher speeds, lower prices, more competitive offerings, and all around better services than in the US, it has discouraged infrastructure investment and therefore is inherently unsustainable and a real bad idea. We then get caught up in the debate about producer incentives, past occasions when the carriers promised investment in exchange for deregulation and failed to deliver, yadda yadda yadda. Because, of course, we only have on possible business model and one role for government policy in broadband. In the US, the Chicago School, which equates a deregulated market with a competitive market and sees no role for government in economic policy beyond enforcing contract, continues to set the agenda and our broadband policy debates remain relegated to debating tweaks around the edges. The refusal of relevant members of Congress or regulatory agencies to even question the underlying validity of the Chicago School, the insistence on accepting the basic frame that government has no role but to get out of the way and that advocates of any approach to the contrary bear a heavy burden of proof, has trapped our national debate like a fly in amber. Meanwhile, we fall further and further behind, losing our edge to nations having substantially different debates. Yet rather than question the Chicago School frame, we endless debate the validity of the metrics tracking our decline. Or, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson: It is easier in Washington to believe that the OECD rankings lie than to believe there is value in having an industrial policy.
http://www.wetmachine.com/item/1228