Susan Crawford recently received the OneCommunity Broadband Hero Award for being a “tireless advocate for 21st century high capacity network access.” In her recent debate with Geoffrey Manne and Berin Szoka, she emphasized that there is little competition in broadband or between cable broadband and wireless, asserting that the main players have effectively divided the markets. As a result, she argues (as she did here at 17:29) that broadband and wireless providers “are deciding not to invest in the very expensive infrastructure because they are very happy with the profits they are getting now.” In the debate, Manne countered by pointing to substantial investment and innovation in both the wired and wireless broadband marketplaces, and arguing that this is not something monopolists insulated from competition do. So, who’s right?
The recently released 2013 Progressive Policy Institute Report, U.S. Investment Heroes of 2013: The Companies Betting on America’s Future, has two useful little tables that lend support to Manne’s counterargument.
The first shows the top 25 investors that are nonfinancial companies, and guess who comes in 1st, 2nd, 10th, 13th, and 17th place? None other than AT&T, Verizon Communications, Comcast, Sprint Nextel, and Time Warner, respectively.
And when the table is adjusted by removing non-energy companies, the ranks become 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 9th. In fact, cable and telecom combined to invest over $50.5 billion in 2012.
This high level of investment by supposed monopolists is not a new development. The Progressive Policy Institute’s 2012 Report, Investment Heroes: Who’s Betting on America’s Future? indicates that the same main players have been investing heavily for years. Since 1996, the cable industry has invested over $200 billion into infrastructure alone. These investments have allowed 99.5% of Americans to have access to broadband – via landline, wireless, or both – as of the end of 2012.
There’s more. Not only has there been substantial investment that has increased access, but the speeds of service have increased dramatically over the past few years. The National Broadband Map data show that by the end of 2012:
- Landline service ? 25 megabits per second download available to 81.7% of households, up from 72.9% at the end of 2011 and 58.4% at the end of 2010
- Landline service ? 100 megabits per second download available to 51.5% of households, up from 43.4% at the end of 2011 and only 12.9% at the end of 2010
- ? 1 gigabit per second download available to 6.8% of households, predominantly via fiber
- Fiber at any speed was available to 22.9% of households, up from 16.8% at the end of 2011 and 14.8% at the end of 2010
- Landline broadband service at the 3 megabits / 768 kilobits threshold available to 93.4% of households, up from 92.8% at the end of 2011
- Mobile wireless broadband at the 3 megabits / 768 kilobits threshold available to 94.1% of households , up from 75.8% at the end of 2011
- Access to mobile wireless broadband providing ? 10 megabits per second download has grown to 87%, up from 70.6 percent at the end of 2011 and 8.9 percent at the end of 2010
- Landline broadband ? 10 megabits download was available to 91.1% of households
This leaves only one question: Will the real broadband heroes please stand up?
