Ten years ago, the United States stood at the forefront of the Internet revolution. With some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the world for high-speed Internet access, the nation was poised to be the global leader in the new knowledge-based economy. Today that global competitive advantage has all but vanished because of a series of government decisions and resulting monopolies that have allowed dozens of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to pass us in both speed and price of broadband. This steady slide backward not only deprives consumers of vital services needed in a competitive employment and business market—it also threatens the economic future of the nation.
[...]... administering the grants under the act, and ten of these were part-time and unpaid 5 Predictably, scandal followed The Union Pacific bribed federal officials to ensure that the line would receive massively favorable public assistance—twice the original land grants under the act and guaranteed bonds and the line's directors (including federal employees) paid themselves generously In what became known as the Crédit... know exactly what's going on and why it's important, can get away with dazzling political sleight-of-hand “Look, there, a new gizmo!” they say to their customers, believing (accurately enough) that few of them will put the pieces together and figure out the truth about the grinding monopolistic power and lack of social contract that underlies the American communications industry today This issue hits... system of oversight for the railroads The ICC, understaffed and inexpert, was swiftly overwhelmed by the lobbying efforts of the railway lawyers, and railroad supervision is now largely in the hands of the railway industry Special-purpose agencies, which depend on the particular industry they regulate for information, for future jobs for underpaid agency employees, and for their institutional sense... and telecommunications companies, well-groomed, mostly male, and placidly enjoying this rare public ritual (Major hearings don't happen every week in the telecommunications field.) There is a constant, easy, friendly flow between government and industry in the communications world bounded by the suburbs of Arlington, Virginia, and Bethesda, Maryland Regulators switch jobs and become the regulated; the. .. creating and marketing the next big thing will go elsewhere But few people with the power to change the situation seem to understand this This book tells the story of the forces that made the Comcast-NBCU merger possible Three paradigm shifts happened between 1996 and 2010 that shaped the narrative First, the big new idea behind the Internet was that its language and language is all the Internet is, a... businesses, and everyone wanted cheap and clean oil But the cooperation between the two industries (their own “vertical integration”), their abusive practices, and their clear disdain for oversight angered Americans across the political spectrum The country emerged from the ensuing regulatory battle as a nation with the idea that big essential infrastructure requires vigilant oversight and intervention... protected, and a level playing field is kept in place for innovation and fair competition The government passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, launched the first infrastructure oversight agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), and sued the railroads for antitrust violations It took years of attempts at legislation, public uproar, and litigation to achieve the dismantling of Standard Oil and the creation... companies, and agencies that seemed relevant and explain why the Comcast merger aligned precisely with their interests The Comcast team would show interest and professional engagement with the various conditions that the regulators required in order to clear the merger, as long as those conditions did not interfere with the company's business plans 10 Behind the witnesses sat representatives of other media and. .. was a separation of different media—television, voice, and text—now, thanks to the rise of digital technology and the advent of the Internet, they have become lightly differentiated uses of the same physical connections The question of who controls the wires is thus about who controls the connections that unite the economy, politics, and society Yet the country's regulatory structure, as much because... That Brian Roberts and his team were brilliant businessmen was apparent Whether the looming cable monopoly made sense for America was not as clear The communications landscape was undergoing great change; Comcast was smoothing out all the difficulties and creating one vast, efficient machine The railroad and oil barons of the early twentieth century had done much the same thing The difference was that . Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crawford, Susan P. , 1963– Captive audience: the telecom industry and monopoly power in the new gilded age / Susan Crawford. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and. monopoly provider of wired high-speed Internet access in the areas it served, while America was lagging far behind other countries when it came to the prices charged for and the speed and capability. third-largest phone company, the owner of many key cable content properties—including eleven regional sports networks and the manager of a robust Video on Demand platform. Comcast's high-speed