We’re all in favor of faster broadband and of removing regulatory barriers at the Federal, state and local level that make it difficult for new entrants to deploy broadband. But we’re seeing more and more shoddy economic reasoning thrown around to assert that (a) broadband is SO AMAZINGLY FREAKIN’ AWESOME that government just has to do something to help it (besides getting out of the way) and (b) that radically faster broadband will somehow transform our economy. Here’s the latest example from the Broadband Coalition:
The economic fallacy should be obvious: correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation. Faster-growing companies may well use the Internet more intensively, but this chart in no way proves that higher intensity of web use, let alone availability of faster broadband or having more broadband providers in the market, actually causes business growth. It’s at least as likely that it’s business growth that actually spurs the intensity of web use.
Smarter broadband policy would be based on real economics, not bar chart charlatanism.