Interview with Sen Klobuchar on Antitrust, Broadband Competition

A Q&A with Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) about her new Antitrust book.

Q: You’ve talked a lot about big tech; when we talk about big tech, we almost always talk about the consumer companies at the edge. It feels like the internet providers, which are monopolies for most people, are not receiving this level of scrutiny. You used to be a telecom lawyer, you worked for MCI. Do you think that scrutiny is coming for the Comcasts and the AT&Ts and Spectrum Cables of the world as well?

Sen Klobuchar: I think that you have seen with Comcast, when you look at the cable rates, they’ve gone up every year after year after year. Now we finally — especially during the pandemic — are starting to see more streaming, it’s coming alive as a concept in a big way. There is some competition, but they still dominated. They’re the textbook case of years of dominating what’s happened. So again, that’s why I just keep going to: putting the right people in place, demanding more of elected officials, and making changes to the law that aren’t just about tech.