Today’s New York Sun offers a stridently-worded opinion piece by former FCC commissioner Harold Furchtgott Roth. Roth basically says we should ignore OECD broadband statistics that place the U.S. behind some of its European and Asian friends and instead focus on the underlying structural forces at work in the U.S. - competition between different platforms and low levels of government intervention. He writes:

“Today, however, consumers in some countries - such as Korea, Japan, and France - can receive broadband services at faster rates and lower prices than most consumers in America. These other governments take a more active role in regulating both the prices and availability of broadband services.

In many instances, their governments even have an ownership interest in companies offering broadband services. To enable more extensive commercial regulation and even government ownership, most countries have more restrictive forms of broadband competition. Broadband policy in many other countries is not different because it favors competition, but precisely because it does not.

Recent research by a professor at Columbia Business School and a leading expert on telecommunications services in different countries, Eli Noam, finds that we are well positioned for the future. Unlike most countries, America has over four platforms actively competing to offer broadband services: traditional telephone companies, traditional cable companies, wireless companies, and many new entrants including satellite services, each with slightly different variations of technology.”

Furchtgott-Roth then adds:

“The rationale for any broadband policy should not be that it causes economic growth, contrary to populist claims. Broadband penetration does not predict economic growth. Although America ranks only 12th in broadband penetration, we have a higher rate of economic growth than the vast majority of countries ranked ahead of us.

This result is not surprising because broadband services still account for only a small share of economic activity in every country. Economic growth depends on many factors, and broadband deployment is not one of them. Paradoxically, although lower taxes cause economic growth, many of those calling for a broadband policy advocate higher taxes. Moreover, most other countries, with higher taxes and a greater inclination to intervene in markets, grow more slowly.

Little would frighten investors, slow investment, and harm consumers more than adoption of a new federal broadband policy. Our broadband policy should be the same whether we are ranked 1st, 15th, or 115th: Willing investors should be able to offer services to willing customers all under full protection of predictable laws with prices set by supply and demand. That, in a nutshell, is current American broadband policy, and it does not need to be changed.”