Broadband mapping is trojan horse for Big Govt. net regulation

Calls by House Telecom Chairman Ed Markey and other Big Government proponents for better "broadband mapping" is simply a "trojan horse" for regulating the Internet. and more government intervention in the marketplace. 

Mr. Markey knows that calling for better data is generally an easy way to build consensus around an issue while staying "under the radar."

• He also knows that he can skew the process to his policy liking by rigging how the new "map" is supposed to be drawn.

Make no mistake about it, this is Chairman Markey's first step in a grander scheme to have Big government play a much bigger role in the Internet and the digital economy. 

• Chairman Markey is also calling for a national broadband policy because he alleges the US is falling behind other countries and because not every American has broadband.

Let's get real here. Broadband mapping legislation is simply a clever ploy of "moving the goalposts" so that in the next Congress Chairman Markey can rail against how much farther behind we are than we "should be."

Chairman Markey knows we do not have a broadband deployment problem now so he hopes to lay the groundwork to create a big broadband problem in the future for him to solve -- in the next congress -- when he anticipates a Democrat will be ensconced in the White House.

Rather than saying that broadband is deploying faster to all Americans than most any communications service in American history, or that the US leads the world in facilities-based broadband competition and investment, Chairman Markey wants to move the goalpost so he can say how dismal the US broadband performance is -- that all Americans do not have the broadband speed that they artifically set. This is really a simple game of gotcha.  

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Chairman Markey et al criticize the 200k speed definition for high speed in the FCC numbers.

• Isn't it fascinating that they praise the OECD rankings data, but offer no criticism that the OECD rankings and methodology are  also based on a comparable 256K high speed threshhold?
• This is very selective use of statistics to skew the policy debate.

I personally think braodband mapping legislation is a very bad idea because is a transparent attempt to turn a perfectly functioning free market in a "failed market" that requires Big Government intervention.

This is the political equivalent of the auto repair scams where the mechanic looks under the hood out of the customers sight, and surreptiously yanks out a couple of lines and hoses, -- and then walks over to the customer and declares himself a hero because he discovered a problem that needs fixing! Broadband mapping is a similar scam. Just different players and a different con.  

The only reason for more "broadband mapping" is to give Big Government more license and ammunition to regulate and tax the Internet and the American people.