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March 5, 2014
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Roadblocks to the Information Superhighway
Falling short on
putting the
public first
by
S am P izzigati
Back in the in­
fan c y
of
th e
Internet Age, our
h ip p e s t
p o lic y
wonks orated end­
le s s ly a b o u t th e
emerging “information superhigh­
way.”
But that m outhful of a m oniker
w ould soon fall out o f fashion.
A nyone today who talks about
the “inform ation superhighw ay”
com es across as a hopelessly
uncool 1990s throwback.
The irony here? If we truly
treated the Internet as a “super­
highw ay,” m aybe we w ouldn’t
find ourselves in the online mess
that now envelops us.
Am ericans currently pay much
more for Internet access than ju st
about everybody else in the de­
veloped world. M any other coun­
tries have established fast, cheap
Internet access as a given of m od­
ern life. In the United States, we
surf the Net at M odel T speeds —
and tens o f m illions of Am ericans
still have no broadband at all.
This pitiful situation may soon
get even worse. Two corporate
giants, Com cast and Time W arner,
are now seeking regulatory ap­
proval for a $45 billion merger that
w ould leave C om cast controlling
the bulk o f the nation’s broad­
band access.
In 19 o f the nation’s 20 larg­
e st m etro a re a s, the “o n ly
choice for a high-capacity wired
connection will be C om cast,”
points out telecom industry
w atchdog Susan Crawford.
So how would thinking “super­
h ig h w ay ” help us out o f this
m ess? A m erica’s only actual “su­
p erhighw ay” — our Interstate
road netw ork — dem onstrates
quite neatly the wonders we can
realize once we start thinking
about basic infrastructure as a
public good, not a source o f grand
private fortune.
O ur Interstate’s greatest cham ­
p io n ,
P re s id e n t
D w ig h t
Eisenhow er, believed that every
citizen had a “vital interest” in a
“safe and adequate highway sys­
tem .” In 1956, Ike signed legisla­
tion that authorized A m erica’s
largest public works project ever,
the construction o f a new super­
highway that would operate to­
tally under public control.
T his p u b lic co n tro l sim ply
seem ed the only way to go for
Am ericans in the m iddle o f the
20th century — and not ju st for
highw ays. These years w ould see
a vast expansion o f public infra­
structure, for everything from rec­
reation to education.
W hat explains this golden age
o f infrastructure? R elative eco­
nom ic equality certainly played a
prim e role. By the 1950s, the
n atio n ’s original plutocracy had
faded away. A mass m iddle class,
the w orld’s first ever, had jum ped
onto political center stage.
M ost A m ericans in this new,
m ore equal A m erica faced sim ilar
problem s. Public solutions ju st
seem ed com m on sense. Build the
Interstate with public tax dollars?
O perate the Interstate under pub­
lic control? O f course. Am ericans
o f the m id-20th century could see
no alternative.
An alternative — we know to­
day in our much m ore unequal
A m erica — does exist: Private in­
terests could control our public
goods. We could have decided 60
years ago to lease out the Inter­
state to private com panies.
If we had organized the Inter­
state along these lines, anyone
w anting to ride the system would
have been paying tribute all these
years to private corporations. And
the execs in those corporations
would have becom e rich enough
to corrupt our political system —
and keep their m onopoly pow er
secure.
This scenario should all sound
a bit fam iliar. In contem porary
A m erica, w e’ve let private corpo­
rations determ ine who can access
our data superhighw ay. That con­
trol has generated grand fortunes
— and form idable political power.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts has
becom e a billionaire. His top lob­
byist used to sit on the Federal
Communications Commission, the
agency that has to decide whether
to approve the C om cast m erger
with Tim e W arner. The other fed­
eral body with a say in the m erger
has a chief who helped grease the
skids, as a corporate attorney, for
C om cast’s 2011 takeover o f NBC
Universal.
Brian Roberts and his corpo­
rate counterparts have essentially
created a giant w ealth extraction
m achine,sucking on average over
$150 a m onth per household for
TV, phone, and Internet, a bundle
that costs a French household in
Paris much less than one-third that
price.
W hat’s the first step toward
turning this situ atio n around?
S to p the C o m ca st and T im e
W arner merger.
OtherWords columnist Sam
Pizzigati is an Institute fo r Policy
Studies associate fellow.