Is the U.S. Government's Internet Policy Broken?

Professor Susan Crawford has just published a thought-provoking book on the future of high-speed Internet access in the United States. At the risk of oversimplifying, Crawford's argument can be summarized in three sentences. Americans need really fast Internet. The market has failed to supply this Internet. Government needs to introduce a "utility model," where high-speed fiber is made available to everyone at reasonable prices. While Crawford highlights some problems with the current market structure for high-speed Internet services, including important problems with the merger approval process, we feel that she does not provide a fair and balanced view of Internet competition in the United States; in particular, she does not take into account appropriate economic considerations, nor does her policy proposal represent the only reasonable response to the alleged problem. This review article explains that why broadband should not be considered a public good, and why the provision of broadband should not be characterized as a natural monopoly. It also presents some alternative approaches to the policy issues raised in Crawford's book; in contrast to her support of net neutrality, we explain why quality-of-service contracts between access providers and websites should be presumptively procompetitive, and that complaining websites should be compelled to reverse that presumption with strong evidence of discrimination.