New Broadband and Telecommunications Studies

Broadband and telecommunications was the focus of a few key studies:

• Smart Grid, Smart Broadband, Smart Infrastructure - This report by the Center for American Progress highlights how building a more efficient electricity grid needs to go hand-in-hand with deploying broadband to homes to maximize the success of both programs.
• Buying Broadband A Boost - Even as broadband has become a focus of debate as part of the national Recovery Act, this report by the Institute on Money in State Politics finds that communications companies with a major stake in this issue have made substantial campaign contributions to state-level politics over the last several years. From 2001 through 2007, five companies — AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, Embarq, and U.S. Cellular Corp — contributed $28 million to state candidates, party committees and ballot measures in all 50 states. They also hired about 2,600 lobbyists in 2006 and 2007.
• Why "Competition" is Failing to Protect Consumers: The Limits of Choice in California's Residential Telecommunications Market   - This report by TURN shows that following the state's elimination of remaining price caps on local service rates for telephone companies, prices increased dramatically, highlighting that local telephone companies still have monopoly pricing power over many families dependent on local fixed-line telephone service.