In a new insight, Technology and Innovation Policy Analyst Jeffrey Westling reviews the state of competition in broadband markets and considers potential reforms to further promote competition.

Key points:

• Recent pricing and investment data show that broadband providers face significant competition, in part due to convergence of mobile and fixed-home services.
• Despite the lowering costs and increasing speeds, many federal regulations and policies still present barriers to deployment and improvements of broadband networks, particularly an onerous environmental review process and lack of spectrum access.
• Congress has an opportunity to lower regulatory barriers to entry and promote transactions that better allocate resources among firms by streamlining local and federal permitting processes, encouraging allocation of spectrum to private uses, and embracing an antitrust policy that is less hostile to mergers in telecommunications markets.

Read the analysis