Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Consumer group comments in the FCC's Broadband Practices Notice of Inquiry demonstrate the failure of the current reliance on a cozy, Telco-Cable duopoly to achieve the policy goal of a ubiquitous communications network "with adequate facilities at reasonable charge" in the broadband era. Pointing out that the decision to allow communications networks to operatte without an obligation of nondiscrimination is a recent reverseal of long standing policy, they make the case for a return to the principle of open communications networks as the solution to the declining status of the U.S. in global broadband adoption.