Neutrality-ites parade out the charge that the market a "broadband duopoly" in order to justify NN regulation. Balderdash! Thus, I particularly relished the Business Week's article on Clearwire, which is an emerging nationwide alternative to DSL and cable modems. This great article is just more in a mountain of evidence to anyone that is fair-minded in examing the merits of the broadband duopoly assertion.
Neutrality-ites are very misleading with their facts when talking about an alleged "broadband duopoly". They conveniently define broadband to suit their self-serving purposes as only cable and telco. Easy to call a self-serving grouping of two a duopoly! But that is not a fair "grouping" or definition of the market as anyone who understands markets and antitrust will tell you.
They would first look for "substitutes" and find them in: satellite broadband used by ~300,000 Americans nationwide and growing, in millions of WiFi hotspot users, and in hundreds of thousands of wireless broadband customers of of Verizon and Sprint serving over half the country -- and with Cingular to be a similar competitor by year end.
Then they would look at the viability of more new entrants and they would see Clearwire, which is profiled in the Business Week link. There they would see a well financed emerging competitor that could offer a nationwide mobile broadband offering, which some would say is clearly superior to a landline restricted bandwidth. Then they would see other competitors coming in selected markets and growing, i.e. broadband over powerlines, and overbuilders like RCN.
They would also note that it used to be a dial-up monopoly and now every indicator shows increasing competition. Supply is not being restricted and prices are falling.
The neutrality-ites don't believe this duopoly mumbo jumbo, but they know it is the best argument they've got. It works if noone asks any questions at all. It collapses when subjected to even the littlest scrutiny.
The NN movement has clearly lost momentum. And as NN is slowing down, it is easier to see that it isn't what it was cracked up to be.
Let's call NN what it really is. It is special interest protection from competition for the online giants and corporate welfare for dotcom billionaires. End of story.
