Big Cable falls into wormhole to alternate universe, sends back blog post about USA's amazing broadband

Competition? We've heard of it

He also noted that "even though there may be competition, the marketplace may not be offering consumers competitive opportunities to change providers, especially once they've signed up with a provider in the first place."

Just one month after the December, 2014 report that the NCTA quotes, the FCC voted to increase the definition of broadband from 4Mbps to 25Mbps, called the old definition "dated and inadequate."

That wasn't all either – a year later, in January 2016, the cable industry went ballistic when the FCC's annual Broadband Report exposed the depth of failure in the market and the regulator threatened to "take immediate action" if the situation wasn't remedied.

That report found that 34 million Americans don't have access to any broadband providers – as defined by 25Mbps – and that the US is still massively behind other developed nations in terms of speed, roll-out and competition (16th out of 34 developed nations).

Eight months later, little had changed.

Another FCC report highlighted that just three per cent of the country has a choice of three or more providers (the definition of real competition) for speeds above 25Mbps; a further 50 per cent had a choice of two.

If you take away the NCTA's reliance on a definition that has been out of date for more than three years, its 88 per cent figure falls to three per cent. If you are generous and reduce that speed to just 10Mbps, the figure is still 63 per cent.

Have your Pai and eat it

So why does the NCTA imagine it can get away with such blatant falsehoods, selling people on the idea that everything is great, that consumers' own experience is wrong, and the broadband market is "defined by competition"?

Well, that's because the new FCC chair, Ajit Pai, is almost certainly going to force through different conclusions when the regulator next reports on the broadband market. Pai and his Republican colleague Michael O'Rielly voted against the proposal in January, 2015 to raise the definition of broadband to 25Mbps.

They didn't attack it on technical grounds – because the FCC's staff had gone into some detail about modern internet use and the typical speeds required – but instead attacked the FCC itself.

O'Rielly called the recommended increase "politically driven" and "a sham." Pai argued that "American taxpayers aren't getting the bang they deserve for their hard-earned bucks." He opined that rather than produce reports that embarrass the cable industry (which he used to work for), what was needed was "a real broadband deployment agenda – a proactive, concrete, bipartisan, dedicated effort to deliver digital opportunity to every American who wants it."

It is no coincidence that Pai and O'Rielly have spent the past few weeks traveling around the country talking to local communities about broadband rollout.

As bizarre as it may sound, the chair of the FCC traveling the country talking about broadband rollout is a clear message to the cable industry that it can continue to charge too much for too little. And then lie about it in blog posts. ®