Government intervention to improve broadband isn’t going to...
Government intervention to improve broadband isn’t going to succeed, said the Technology Policy Institute’s Robert Crandall Monday during a keynote speech at the institute’s Aspen Forum. Crandall said the FCC’s universal service policy is an example of government intervention that…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
hasn’t been as productive as intended: “There’s very little evidence that any of this has increased subscriptions, reduced prices or had any beneficial effect.” A lack of consumer demand “is one of the large problems” in broadband expansion efforts, he said: Companies aren’t deploying high-speed broadband networks because “they don’t see enough demand for superfast takeup.” In June 2011, 50 percent of homes had access to 50 Mbps download speeds, according to an FCC report, but “only 28 percent of homes purchased broadband with at least 6 Mbps download speed” at the time, he said. “Households don’t seem to want to pay whatever the premium is for extremely high-speed service."