AP - Asia
October 27, 2004 4:34 PM

No, broadband's doing fine, thanks

By
John Borland
Topics
Broadband

Yesterday consumer groups released a study saying broadband policy in the U.S. was failing. Here's a counterpoint from the conservative Heritage Foundation, essentially an annotated transcript from a roundtable held in the summer (but released yesterday).

The general take is that things are going just fine, except there might still be a few too many regulations in place hampering the investment strategies of the big local phone companies and cable networks. "When it comes to broadband, we are claiming defeat. We should be claiming victory," said Harold Furchtgott-Roth, a former FCC commissioner.

These two reports pretty much set the bookends for the debate over broadband policy coming up next year. They're both fairly ideologically driven, and the fun part is that they both claim absolute adherence to the magic of competition.

Let's hope some good analysis based on what's really happening on the ground, and what's really possible as demonstrated by other countries, doesn't get replaced by dogmatic thinking on either side.


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