I know, I'm boring you with Telecom deregulation when you're jonesing for an exegesis on comparative advantage.
The WSJ Ed Page reminds us, in The Telecom Follies why we rank eleventh in broadband Internet access adoption:
Our concern is with an Administration leaving in place what is essentially an Al Gore-Reed Hundt industrial policy that allows government bureaucrats to slice up the information technology pie.
In case no one in Washington has noticed, the largely unregulated and hence highly competitive wireless industry is flourishing. Meanwhile the broadband market has been left to the devices of state and local officials who have proceeded to regulate it into something close to inertia, at least by international standards. Wholesale prices have been set so low that incumbent carriers have little incentive to upgrade old networks, let alone build new ones.
Picking winners and losers and setting prices that discourage innovation come naturally to Democrats. But Republicans claim to believe it's better to leave these matters to the free-market. What the economy needs right now is an all-clear signal for telecom, some indication that the big court battles are over. Instead, the White House continues to look the appellate court's latest gift horse in the mouth -- to the detriment of the economy, and perhaps to its own political future. Posted by jk at March 26, 2004 09:53 AM