Because the nation's largest telecom companies clearly don't already exert enough political pressure on lawmakers crafting our national broadband plan, telecom vendors and broadband ISPs have created a new PR and lobbying operation called Broadband For America. The goal of the group, according to a group spokesman, is to be "a resource for policy-makers in an effort to ensure that the national broadband plan results in a faster, smarter and safer Internet." A brief introduction from the group's website:It's ironic, given the group's members have collectively spent billions of dollars preventing any of these goals from actually happening. For instance, group members Qwest and Cox have spent millions lobbying for laws that prevent your town or city from wiring itself with broadband, even in cases where nobody else will. Group members AT&T and Verizon have spent millions of dollars trying to prevent the public from having an accurate picture of broadband deployment, so deployment shortcomings aren't highlighted and competition improved.

"BfA represents a historic coming together of Internet service providers (ISPs), backbone providers, content providers, consumer groups, commercial groups, end-user organizations, and associations, all sharing the view that America should make broadband access to the Internet available to everyone," says a press release in our inbox.

This claim that their membership list is stocked with "consumer groups" turns out to be as bogus as their stated goals, given there's not a single viable consumer advocacy firm among the group's 100 members. BfA does, however, include dozens of "co-opted" minority, disability and other industry-funded groups. Said groups are used by lobbyists to pretend the interests and opinions presented to lawmakers have broad public support, and aren't just the monotonal whining of a handful of corporations interested solely in protecting revenues.

For example, a group that needs funding for a new events center will agree to parrot Verizon policy positions in public press releases. The National Association of the Deaf did as much for the baby bells when Verizon and AT&T were trying to eviscerate existing TV laws, even though the law the group was busy cheerfully supporting resulted in cherry-picked next-generation broadband deployment for NAD's constituents.

The fact that these groups are selling their constituents up the river apparently can't compete with the cash gleaned from major telecom companies. Alongside dozens of of hijacked interest groups like the "Livestock Marketing Association," sits meaningless groups that are completely bogus, like Consumers First, a fake Verizon consumer group in Pennsylvania that isn't even operational anymore, and Americans For Technology Leadership.

The end result is a dog and pony show that creates the illusion of diversity, but has at its heart the single lobbying voice of the nation's largest broadband providers. This message is repeated via policy puppets and subsequently in the press, and all of it is managed by cable or baby bell PR and public policy firms like Issue Dynamics in order to achieve one goal: protect company revenues from tough consumer protection laws and increased competition.

As we've illustrated, the nation's broadband plan already appears to be in trouble, with consumers once again largely omitted from the discussion, while the nation's largest telecom corporations get consistent access to the nation's lawmakers. Of course the very last thing our broadband plan needs is additional lobbying influence from the same companies that have fought broadband reform every single step of the way, but that's exactly what you're getting. Expect to see this reflected in the final national broadband plan when the FCC unveils it next February.