McCain's Dodgy History on Broadband Regulation

Yesterday, I published an article arguing that John McCain's policies had contributed significantly to the sorry state of broadband in this country. In it, I mentioned prominently McCain's opposition to the 1996 Telecommunications Act and other efforts to make sure that people can choose from multiple broadband providers. My argument is that broadband is a market where you need government intervention to create competition. You want companies to compete with Verizon; but you can't have every competitor tearing up streets and installing new lines into people's homes. So, Verizon should be forced to lease their lines to competitors. That's what the 1996 Act asked, in exchange for allowing Verizon and the other Bells to go into long distance markets. But the provision wasn't enforced and then it was rolled back. That's why there's almost no competition in the market today.

In response, a smart commentator pointed out that there were tons of reasons for opposing the 1996 Telecom Act. Most of the debate, in fact, centered around censorship and the Communications Decency Act. Was blocking competition and helping the Bell's really McCain's motive in voting nay?

Well, looking at McCain's history it sure seems that way! For starters, he seemed to fundamentally misunderstand that the telecom market is one where regulation is required to create competition. In the markup of the Act, he wrote: "Congress must create free and open markets" (good!) but then, "Experience shows . . . that a deregulated market is not long dominated by a few giants, but rather that competitors come along and devise ways to run circles around the giants." (Lots of people knew that was wrong then for this industry; everyone should realize it's wrong now!)

Perhaps more important, in the negotiating over the Act, he he took the extreme pro-Bell position: arguing that they should be allowed into long distance without opening their local lines. He also sponsored a failed amendment to the Act that would have knocked out the pro-competition elements of the bill in three years.

Then, in 98, he proposed eliminating all regulations on Bells within a year; 1999 brought us the "Internet Regulatory Freedom Act of 1999" to prohibit the FCC from requiring the Bells to leas their wires to competitors; in 2002 he supported the "Consumer Broadband Deregulation Act," which would have vastly limited the rights that states have to regulate broadband, blocked any news laws requiring the leasing of broadband lines, and stopped the FCC from requiring telephone companies to lease fiber to competitors. In 2005, he was an original co-sponsor of the "Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act" that would have eliminated all managed competition in the broadband market. And, of course, he's the man who brought us FCC chair Michael Powell, who did have some virtues, but who also played a big part in rolling back competition in the market.

John McCain has been very good no some tech issues. He's opposed just giving away spectrum, and he acted very honorably in supporting the rights of cities to build municipal wifi networks. Still, his record on broadband competition is clear and damning: John McCain is a big reason that the Internet in this country is so slow and a big reason why customer service at your DSL or cable provider is so bad.

By Nicholas Thompson for Wired.com

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