Consultant Backs Market-Based Broadband Policy

Everyone's favorite telecom consultant Scott Cleland, president of Precursor LLC, is warning the telecom industry of "the dangers and unintended consequences of a more government- centric broadband policy." He's spotlighting what he calls "glaring flaws" in three pillar broadband assumptions that bias the broadband debate away from America's free-market success and toward the OECD's industrial policy orthodoxy. Here are the three "hidden biases" Cleland puts forth: 1) Denial that free-market competition works. 2) Denial that network utilization/cost matter in broadband policymaking. 3) Denial of wireless broadband competition and consumer demand for mobility. According to Cleland, the bottom line is this: "The case for a more government-centric national broadband policy depends on no one challenging its fragile pillar assumptions. Proponents know their 'straw man' argument is a superficially appealing, but substantively weak. Any rigorous inquiry into: progress measurement frameworks, network utilization/cost, or intermodal competition, will expose the obvious weakness of their policy argument."