Obama's FCC team?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: November 15, 2008 7:03:41 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Re: Obama's FCC team?

[Note:  This comment comes from reader Brett Glass.  We asked Brett  
from some clarification of his remarks on Susan Crawford and this is  
his response.  DLH]

> From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
> Date: November 14, 2008 7:40:36 PM PST
> To: daveb () dslprime com, dewayne () warpspeed com
> Subject: Re: [IP] Obama's FCC team?
>
> > I profiled 30 possible FCC candidates, including four of the five  
> > chosen, at http://www.fastnetnews.com/policy/56-us-and-canada-telecom-policy/560-obama-policy30-profiles
>
> Dave, this is scary -- especially given the appointment of Susan  
> Crawford as an advisor. I was physically present at a Congressional  
> hearing at which Susan told a group of Senators -- straight to their  
> faces -- that there were no alternatives to the telephone/cable  
> "duopoly." In short, she was denying the existence of myself and my  
> approximately 4,000 colleagues -- who cover 98% of the country's  
> population and many areas that telcos and cable companies do not  
> cover -- even as I sat in the same room. What sort of policy can we  
> expect from an administration at least one of whose key advisors is  
> willing to make patently false and misleading statements in  
> testimony before Congress so as to promote her personal agenda?  
> Especially when that agenda would render WISPs such as myself  
> extinct and thus actually hinder broadband deployment in rural areas?

Date: November 14, 2008 9:49:41 PM PST
Subject: Re: Obama's FCC team?

After a rather laborious hunt, I've managed to find a copy of Susan's  
testimony online. The hearing was before the Antitrust Task Force of  
the House (not Senate; my mistake) Judiciary Committee, on March 11th,  
2008. She says:

> You might be thinking that the market will ensure that a non- 
> discriminatory provider of Internet access will arrive on the scene  
> if that is what users want.  But we do not have a functioning  
> competitive market for Internet access.  Instead, we have regional  
> duopolies (usually one cable provider and one telco) providing  
> Internet access to 98% of the country.  Prices are not going down  
> and nondiscriminatory Internet access services are not available.   
> In fact, a JP Morgan analyst named Jonathan Chaplin recently made  
> clear that cable and telephone companies are doing their best to  
> avoid a price war:
>
> "The broadband market is a duopoly," he said. "That should be a  
> stable pricing environment. It's in their interests to compete  
> rationally and preserve the economics of the market."

In the remainder of her speech, she continues to harp on this (false)  
string, claiming again and again that there is only a duopoly in "98%  
of the country" when in fact competitive ISPs -- including WISPs --  
serve about that much of it! She seeks, by denying the existence of  
competitive broadband providers, to advance a regulatory agenda that  
would in fact greatly harm or even eliminate those providers.

For the full text of her testimony, see

<http://www.openinternetcoalition.org/files/Crawford_Testimony.pdf>

--Brett Glass


>
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