*There has been a concerted push recently by the broadband industry to try and insist that the United States broadband market is secretly flawless, awesome and highly competitive, despite the fact that absolutely every independent source of broadband data (from Akamai and the FCC to the OECD and OOkla's Net Index) suggests we're absolutely and utterly mediocre at every metric that counts.

That's not to say we're not improving in some very select regions (thanks to things like Google Fiber, Verizon FiOS and DOCSIS 3.0), but overall we're quite indisputably, utterly average when it comes to broadband worldwide. If you've been following our coverage of cable's growing dominance of fixed-line broadband as companies like Verizon exit huge swaths of the market, things are about to get worse.

Thanks to napping regulators, apathy, and a poorly-informed public, the lack of competition continues to be the primary reason for our mediocrity. That lack of competition allows companies to lag on network upgrades and improvements to customer support, while engaging in often obnoxious anti-competitive behavior. Most importantly it allows them to work relentlessly to drive prices skyward using everything from completely bogus fees to forcing you to bundle services you don't want.

Yet we've seen a hurricane of disinformation efforts from the industry recently trying to convince the public that there's absolutely nothing wrong. Millionaire Steve Forbes has informed rural DSL users that having those lines severed without a suitable replacement is no big deal, Verizon's CEO has pretended that most people can get 100 Mbps speeds, and Comcast's David Cohen has hallucinated that the United States is #1 in broadband worldwide.

2013, to put it bluntly, has been a banner year for broadband bullshit.

The latest odiforous entry came last week, courtesy of John Sununu and Broadband for America, a lobbying and disinformation tentacle forged by giant carriers to frame public perception. In an editorial circulated nationally last week by the group, former White House Chief of Staff turned telecom sock puppet Sununu informs readers, much like similar pieces by Comcast lobbyists, that United States broadband is secretly awesome and those claiming otherwise are just crybabies.

Like most other recent pieces, the editorial cherry picks stats that look good but are rather irrelevant (we're #2 at total worldwide connections behind China!), pays some lip service to bridging the digital divide (something millionaire duopolists couldn't care less about), then proceeds to try and counter the excitement surrounding Google Fiber by insisting that you don't need a 1 Gbps connection. Proclaims Sununu:

quote:

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Some critics still charge that U.S. broadband won’t be first-class until everyone has 1 gigabit-per-second (or “1-gig”) service. But the reality is that the market for even faster services will grow as applications emerge that require them. The very few countries that have experimented with 1-gig services have found that there are no meaningful applications yet developed to take advantage of those speeds — nor, even, for the 300 Mbps speeds already being offered in many parts of the U.S. The U.S. Department of Commerce has been skeptical about the near-term market for gigabit tiers.

Even if gigabit apps were to suddenly flood the market, few websites and almost none of the wireless routers currently in use today could effectively deliver such speeds. The truth is that most consumers today find that the more moderate, yet rapidly-increasing, multi-megabit speeds are more than sufficient to meet their current requirements.

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As I've noted previously, by focusing on whether you need 1 Gbps speeds, you won't be inclined to talk about why incumbent broadband providers won't provide them. Or ask why, for example, a search engine can provide users with 1 Gbps for $70, but an incumbent ISP still charges users an arm and a leg (plus assorted fees) for connections that are dramatically slower. You certainly won't ask why so many millions of people in the United States are still paying $60 (or more, if you're being forced to bundle other services) for speeds slower than 5 Mbps.

While this kind of song and dance is par for the lobbyist course, there's two major new reasons for the renewed disinformation push this year:

• Susan Crawford annoyed all the right people earlier this year when the tour for her new book, Captive Audience, brought a lot of attention to the uncompetitive nature of the U.S. broadband industry and the degree of regulatory capture carriers enjoy. As an aside, many of her one-star Amazon reviews (from folks like Lee offer a master class in broadband industry astroturfing). The industry is very interested in shifting the public's attention away from the unpleasant facts the public learned during those conversations.

• Google Fiber brought an immense amount of previously-unheard of attention to our national broadband shortcomings. When Google first put out feelers to gauge interest among cities, the response was utterly massive in scale, with every podunk newspaper and local broadcast news affiliate highlighting in great detail how displeased people are with the way things are. Every time Google Fiber expands, it happens all over again. It's just the sort of thing that makes a duopolist with a vested interest in crushing new competition cry.

As is always the case with these kinds of hallucinatory millionaire missives, pretending that the United States broadband market is perfect as is derails any efforts to try and improve it, be it on the federal or smaller community level. The industry certainly doesn't want you to notice that you're being mugged with endless fees while enjoying some of the worst customer service in any industry. The industry also certainly would prefer you not notice that AT&T and Verizon are effectively ceding huge swaths of the fixed line broadband industry to cable, creating an even less competitive market than we already have.