Re: Obama's FCC team?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Carl Malamud <carl () media org>
Date: November 15, 2008 12:02:14 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Obama's FCC team?

Hi Dave and Brett -

Brett, I think you were perhaps misreading Susan's testimony.  She  
doesn't appear to be advocating the duopoly as a good thing, merely  
stating economic reality in a way that most economists would agree with.

A monopoly or oligopoly isn't an all-or-nothing thing.  DOJ guidelines  
say a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index greater than 1,000 is a concentrated  
industry, and my back of the envelope calculations on market share  
(AT&T, 21%; Comcast, 22%, Verizon 13%) shows an HHI of about 1,400,  
enough to trigger a review by DOJ in a merger.  And, I think it is  
fair to say the majority of people really do have a duopolistic  
choice: cable v. dialup/DSL.  Again, this doesn't mean there aren't  
alternatives and isn't absolute, but it certainly is today's market.

The other thing you perhaps misread is that you seem to be thinking  
that her testimony was somehow justifying or advocating the  
duopoly ... my reading of her testimony is she was saying that the  
situation was not a good one from the point of view of consumers and  
she was arguing for a sharper eye on issues of common carriage,  
protection of speech, and discrimination.

It would be a real mistake to parse the transition agency review  
staffers (which is what Susan is doing along with Kevin Werbach) into  
an indication of what policy is going to be.  Their job is to look for  
problems, not solutions.

Carl

[1] Market share statistics here: http://www.parksassociates.com/research/reports/tocs/2008/broadband-update.htm

On Nov 15, 2008, at 5:24 AM, David Farber wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
> Date: November 15, 2008 7:03:41 AM EST
> To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Re: Obama's FCC team?
>
> [Note:  This comment comes from reader Brett Glass.  We asked Brett  
> from some clarification of his remarks on Susan Crawford and this is  
> his response.  DLH]
>
> > From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
> > Date: November 14, 2008 7:40:36 PM PST
> > To: daveb () dslprime com, dewayne () warpspeed com
> > Subject: Re: [IP] Obama's FCC team?
> >
> > > I profiled 30 possible FCC candidates, including four of the five  
> > > chosen, at http://www.fastnetnews.com/policy/56-us-and-canada-telecom-policy/560-obama-policy30-profiles
> >
> > Dave, this is scary -- especially given the appointment of Susan  
> > Crawford as an advisor. I was physically present at a Congressional  
> > hearing at which Susan told a group of Senators -- straight to  
> > their faces -- that there were no alternatives to the telephone/ 
> > cable "duopoly." In short, she was denying the existence of myself  
> > and my approximately 4,000 colleagues -- who cover 98% of the  
> > country's population and many areas that telcos and cable companies  
> > do not cover -- even as I sat in the same room. What sort of policy  
> > can we expect from an administration at least one of whose key  
> > advisors is willing to make patently false and misleading  
> > statements in testimony before Congress so as to promote her  
> > personal agenda? Especially when that agenda would render WISPs  
> > such as myself extinct and thus actually hinder broadband  
> > deployment in rural areas?
>
> Date: November 14, 2008 9:49:41 PM PST
> Subject: Re: Obama's FCC team?
>
> After a rather laborious hunt, I've managed to find a copy of  
> Susan's testimony online. The hearing was before the Antitrust Task  
> Force of the House (not Senate; my mistake) Judiciary Committee, on  
> March 11th, 2008. She says:
>
> > You might be thinking that the market will ensure that a non- 
> > discriminatory provider of Internet access will arrive on the scene  
> > if that is what users want.  But we do not have a functioning  
> > competitive market for Internet access.  Instead, we have regional  
> > duopolies (usually one cable provider and one telco) providing  
> > Internet access to 98% of the country.  Prices are not going down  
> > and nondiscriminatory Internet access services are not available.   
> > In fact, a JP Morgan analyst named Jonathan Chaplin recently made  
> > clear that cable and telephone companies are doing their best to  
> > avoid a price war:
> >
> > "The broadband market is a duopoly," he said. "That should be a  
> > stable pricing environment. It's in their interests to compete  
> > rationally and preserve the economics of the market."
>
> In the remainder of her speech, she continues to harp on this  
> (false) string, claiming again and again that there is only a  
> duopoly in "98% of the country" when in fact competitive ISPs --  
> including WISPs -- serve about that much of it! She seeks, by  
> denying the existence of competitive broadband providers, to advance  
> a regulatory agenda that would in fact greatly harm or even  
> eliminate those providers.
>
> For the full text of her testimony, see
>
> <http://www.openinternetcoalition.org/files/Crawford_Testimony.pdf>
>
> --Brett Glass
>
>
> >
> RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>
>
>
>
>
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