We've been pretty hard on Saul Hansell of the New York Times for a series of pieces on U.S. broadband, that seemed to be downplaying the problems that plague the industry in order to subtly argue against government regulation.

In parts two and three of his series, the Times columnist does a better job exploring how other countries have improved broadband because government actually got involved -- something that doesn't happen here for a number of reasons, not least of which is that industry has convinced the public that absolutely all regulation is akin to killing puppies and unavoidably ends in failure. Though that just masks the real reason why government involvement is so hated: lower revenues.Of course if government (however unlikely in the minds of many) actually got a broadband policy right, a major result would be broader competition, which would hit carriers in the pocketbooks. So the question then becomes: why haven't we even tried to create a national broadband policy?

Sure, it's partially thanks to the Milton Friedman free market principles that suggest utopia is achieved by government remaining on the sidelines. But this isn't a free market, it's a government-subsidized duopoly, where the largest companies get preferential treatment, and are often rewarded for failure. Not only that, they often write the very laws regulating them, enforced by regulators who previously worked at the carriers they're now overseeing.

And we're shocked that we're middle of the pack in speed, prices and coverage?

The real reason we have no broadband policy isn't because we, as a society, have embraced a particular hands-off "philosophy." It's because incumbent lobbyists have a stranglehold on the nation's government, allowing them to kill distasteful policies in the metaphorical cradle. They've also been able to gloss over coverage and competitive gaps by withholding penetration data from the public (with the FCC's help, if you ask our friend Drew Clark of Broadband Census).

Companies like AT&T and Verizon, via public relations magicians like Issue Dynamics, operate some of the most sophisticated lobbying operations on the planet, across any industry. Through farmed think tank science and even artificial consumer advocacy groups, they've managed to divert, derail, and distort substantive discourse on this subject for more than a decade -- convincing us that no policy is the best policy. The facts show otherwise, no matter how vigorously they're massaged, re-arranged, or manipulated.

If you're looking for the heart of the problem with American broadband, look on K Street.