ACA Connects Plea: "Don’t Regulate Us"

I’m starting to wonder if big cable companies and telecom companies are assuming that a fifth Federal Communications Commissioner will soon be seated because the lobbying arms of these companies have been publishing documents that are an open plea to not regulate them. The latest comes in the form of a whitepaper from ACA Connects, which represents the mid-sized internet service provider (ISP) like Cable ONE, WOW! Internet, Mediacom, TDS, Armstrong, Hotwire, and ISPs of a similar size. You might recall that the giant ISPs put out a whitepaper through USTelecom that made the silly argument that broadband is getting cheaper, with the punch line being, “Don’t regulate us”. The ACA paper takes a different tactic and argues that most of the country already is, or will soon have competition, with the same punch line. It’s important to understand that these papers are not written for the general public so much as for the politicians in Washington (DC). The average consumer knows that broadband is not getting cheaper, and most know they have only one realistic choice of fast ISP. I could write twenty pages commenting on the many things said in the whitepaper that stretch the truth a bit – but it seems unnecessary since the whole point of the paper is to plant that seed that ISPs are taking care of the business of broadband and don’t need to be regulated.

[Doug Dawson is president of CCG Consulting.]