Telecom's Big Players Hold Back the Future By DAVID CARR May 19, 2013
If you were going to look for ground zero in the fight against a rapidly consolidating telecom and cable industry, you might end up on the fifth floor of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. Susan Crawford, a professor at the school, has written a book, "Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age," that offers a calm but chilling state-of-play on the information age in the United States. She is on a permanent campaign, speaking at schools, conferences and companies - she was at Google last week - and in front of Congress, asserting that the status quo has been great for providers but an expensive mess for everyone else. Ms. Crawford argues that the airwaves, the cable systems and even access to the Internet itself have been overtaken by monopolists who resist innovation and chronically overcharge consumers. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was meant to lay down track to foster competition in a new age, allowed cable companies and telecoms to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly. If you are looking for the answer to why much of the developed world has cheap, reliable connections to the Internet while America seems just one step ahead of the dial-up era, her office - or her book - would be a good place to find out. In a recent conversation, she explained that wired and wireless connections, building blocks of modern life, are now essentially controlled by four companies. Comcast and Time Warner have a complete lock on broadband in the markets they control, covering some 50 million American homes, while Verizon and AT&T own 64 percent of cellphone service. Don't get her started on the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger unless you have some time on your hands. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/business/media/telecoms-big-players-hold-back-the-future.html _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews_etskywarn.net
