Big Cable’s Sledgehammer Is Coming Down

[Commentary] I want to talk about the sledgehammer of usage-based billing. I take no pride in saying that I’ve been talking about it for years. The sledgehammer is not something I welcome, and I would have been happy if my fears about it never materialized. After all, the sledgehammer could cost Internet users billions of dollars, enrich monopolists, and defeat the spirit  --  if not the law  -- of net neutrality. In a big way, the sledgehammer will also beat down our economic growth. This is one evil sledgehammer.

The sledgehammer (as employed by the mobile carriers) is a part of a complex scheme designed to hijack the development of a fast, cheap, competitive, unlimited-capacity data communications systems  --  like the one our country should have. If we upgraded to competitive wholesale publicly-overseen fiber optic networks all over the country, we could leave the cable industry and its ongoing destructive shenanigans behind. It’s time to stand up. And when we stand up, we should have a shared purpose and a goal: get wholesale fiber networks built across the country. Right now. If we don’t  -- we’ll deserve the scarcity and the sledgehammers that lie ahead.

[Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School]