A Decidedly Different Take

The cable industry can crow all it wants about how its broadband rollout has benefited consumers, but the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and Free Press are painting a far starker picture as they urge the FCC to enact net-neutrality rules: "The demonstrated failure of the cozy duopoly model to achieve the goals of the 1996 Act, the flawed theory of the benefits of discrimination, the clear initial signs of anticompetitive and anti-consumer practices, as well as the extremely dim prospects for vigorous competition in facilities, combine to create a very dismal future for broadband consumers in America." Whew. At least their joint filing at the FCC didn’t use a word like "quagmire." Oh wait. It did: "The only way to break out of this quagmire is to return to the success policies of open communications that made the Internet possible and allowed the U.S. to be the world leader in the first generation of the digital age."