Om Malik, founder of GigaOm, blames the FCC under Kevin Martin for failing to create a more competitive broadband environment in the United States. The ISPs’ behavior - traffic shaping, blocking applications - points to a market that is controlled by a few large service providers who feel they can get away with anything (and often do because the FCC does nothing against them).

Om says:

But this whole problem is the FCC’s making. The org, under Chairman Kevin Martin and others, has systematically dismantled broadband competition and paved the way for a duopoly (of cable and phone companies.) . . . this duopoly has thrived, and is the reason that the incumbents indulge in anti-consumer behavior. If there was thriving competition, and the cable and phone companies had to work for a living, BitTorrent blocking wouldn’t be an issue. Bandwidth would be plentiful, as it is in other developed and emerging telecom economies. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to be falling for Martin’s nice guy act, failing to realize that it’s just a ploy for him to build some political capital before he tries to get elected to Congress to subvert the system even further. The blame lies squarely with Martin and others in the FCC: The politicians have failed their constituency and done nothing to foster real competition in the U.S. when it comes to broadband. We’ve never really had true broadband competition, which is in my mind the real problem. What we need is a whole new approach to legislation and a brand-new FCC, one that is not encumbered by personal political ambitions and beholden to lobbyists. An FCC that puts the people first. It’s as simple as that.

Read more of Om’s post here.

Tags: competition, duopoly, fcc

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