Overbuilding Broadband Networks With Public Funds Harms Consumers

Jonathan Sallet, now a Senior Fellow of the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society and FCC General Counsel during Tom Wheeler's chairmanship of the Obama-era Federal Communications Commission, has published a new paper titled, "Broadband for America's Future: A Vision for the 2020s." Because I disagreed with much (but not all) of the Obama FCC's broadband policy – especially including its imposition of public utility-like regulation on Internet service providers – I am not surprised that I disagree with much (but not all) in Mr. Sallet's new Benton paper.

Sallet advocates that government funding for broadband networks should be directed not only to areas that lack broadband, but also to areas where Internet access is "inadequate." By inadequate, Sallet means either (or both) that broadband already is available, but not at speeds that he considers adequate, or that there are not enough providers to satisfy him. He doesn't say how much government funding should be made available, or how it should be paid for. Sallet advocates that the definition of what constitutes "broadband" for purposes of receipt of government funding be increased substantially. While there is nothing per se untoward with high aspirations, it is not helpful when the boundaries of such aspirations are left vague or set unrealistically high, and when the means for the government funding such aspirations are not specified. Sallet wants the government to subsidize "competition" in areas in which service is already available, without any regard for the adverse impact such subsidization is likely to have on suppressing private sector investment and innovation.

[Randolph J. May is President of the Free State Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan free market-oriented think tank located in Rockville (MD)]