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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr" rel="author">Timothy
Karr</a>
<p class="teaser_permalink">Campaign Director, Free Press and
SavetheInternet
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/americas-internet-now-as-_b_1138775.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/americas-internet-now-as-_b_1138775.html</a><br>
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<h1 class="title-blog"> America's Internet -- Now as Good as
Angola's </h1>
<div style="padding-top:15px;" class="blog_padding relative"> <span
class="arial_11 color_696969">Posted: 12/ 9/11 10:13 AM ET</span>
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<p>A recent <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/opinion/bringing-high-speed-internet-to-all.html">letter
to the editor</a> of the <em>New York Times</em> from Verizon
CEO Ivan Seidenberg had me scratching my head.</p>
<p>Seidenberg wrote to<a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/internet-access-and-the-new-divide.html?pagewanted=print">
rebut a <em>Times</em> Op-Ed</a> by former White House
technology adviser Susan Crawford, in which she argues that the
United States' high-speed Internet marketplace suffers from a lack
of competition, a problem that drives broadband prices up and
services down for American Internet users.</p>
<p>"Over the last 10 years, we have deregulated high-speed Internet
access in the hope that competition among providers would protect
consumers," Crawford wrote. "The result? We now have neither a
functioning competitive market for high-speed wired Internet
access nor government oversight."</p>
<p><strong>Our Broadband Backwater</strong></p>
<p>Indeed. It's gotten so bad the U.S. has gone from number one in
broadband penetration at the close of the 20th century down to --
depending on the survey -- 18th, 22nd or 25th in the world. And
Americans continue to pay a whole lot more and get a <a
href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/Berkman_Center_Broadband_Final_Report_15Feb2010.pdf">whole
lot less</a> of the Internet speeds that we deserve.</p>
<p>Compare our circumstances to those in Japan, for example, where
Internet users are <a
href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/the-cost-to-offer-the-worlds-fastest-broadband-20-per-home/">accustomed
to surfing</a> the Web at speeds of 100 Mbps (or megabits per
second) at the same prices Americans pay for dial-up. In Hong
Kong, one provider <a
href="http://www.convergedigest.com/DSL/lastmilearticle.asp?ID=33367&ctgy=">now
offers</a> a $20 a month "triple play" package that includes a
blistering 1,000 Mbps data service.</p>
<p>Despite the evidence, Verizon's Seidenberg wrote that Crawford
was wrong; America's Internet is the best in the world.</p>
<p>"America has a very good broadband story; someone just has to be
willing to tell it," Seidenberg argues in his letter to the <em>Times</em>.
As evidence he cites a 2011 World Economic Forum global survey,
which in the words of Seidenberg "ranks the United States first in
Internet competition."</p>
<p>Say what? I had to see that for myself.</p>
<p>The most recent <a
href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GCR_Report_2011-12.pdf">WEF
"Global Competitiveness" report</a> (pdf) features U.S. rankings
on page 363. The good news is that we're ranked first in the world
for available airline seats. But the United States' Internet
rankings are terrible. We're 18th in the availability of the
latest technology, 18th in Internet users per capita and 26th in
Internet bandwidth per capita.</p>
<p>Perhaps Seidenberg's evidence is buried elsewhere. On page 294 of
<a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GITR_Report_2011.pdf">another
WEF report</a> (pdf) I found a section on "political and
regulatory environments" that featured an Internet and telephone
sector competition index.</p>
<p>The report allegedly looks at the level of competition for
"retail Internet access services, for international long-distance
calls, and for digital cellular mobile services," placing
countries on a 0 (worst) to 6 (best) scale.</p>
<p>But it doesn't actually measure market competition beyond
determining whether these three separate fields remain
state-sanctioned monopolies. </p>
<p>Well, U.S. telecommunications isn't a monopoly anymore. We did
manage to break up Ma Bell in the 1980s, but her children are
showing every intention to reassemble themselves as a modern-day
equivalent. That hasn't happened. At least not yet, so on retail
Internet access we get a 2, indicating that its not a monopoly
market; on international long distance we get a 2; and on digital
cellular mobile services we get a 2. </p>
<p>Our cumulative score is a 6, according to the report, the best
possible ranking -- or "first in Internet competition" in
Seidenberg's profoundly misleading interpretation.</p>
<p>Want to know who else came in "first?"</p>
<p><strong>Sixty other countries, including Angola, Burundi, the
Kyrgyz Republic, Venezuela and Vietnam.</strong></p>
<p>We're all Number One!</p>
<p>So if you are proud that the U.S. offers an Internet that's on
par with, er... Angola's, stand beside Seidenberg and wave the
flag.</p>
<p>But if you agree with Crawford that the lack of true competition
in the U.S. has put us on a perilous path, demand that we do more
to guarantee universal and affordable access in a marketplace with
real choices.</p>
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