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Pro-Net Neutrality Nuggets Are Buried in Verizon’s Poll

On behalf of the Net Neutrality community, I’d like to thank Public Opinion Strategies and the Glover Park Group for their recent survey on Net Neutrality. And a fine piece of work it is. On one hand, some of the poll was so over-the-top that it’s easy to discredit. On the other hand, if you look a little deeper, it appears that the Verizon-sponsored work not only bolstered our case, but provided the seeds to start a wider discussion of a new broadband policy for the country.

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There is a common theme through the first three crucial questions.

The first question — “How important is it to you that (Insert State) residents have a choice of service providers when it comes to cable TV – in other words, that there is more than one company to choose from?” In the overall survey of 800 voters, 73 percent said the choice was “very important Separate surveys from 400 voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri had similar results.

The second question — “How interested would you be in having more companies to choose from for your cable TV service?” The response was that 50 percent were “very interested” and 26 percent were “somewhat interested.”

For the third question, a multiple choice one, 56 percent of those surveyed said more choices would bring about lower prices, 50 percent said better customer service (not exactly a vote of confidence) and 40 percent, new technologies.

The central theme, and what these questions show clearly, is that consumers want choice. Let’s look at this on two levels. Consumers want choices in Internet applications and services. They don’t want a telephone or cable company deciding for them what Web sites or applications will function better than others. They don’t want a telephone or cable company cutting an exclusive deal . . .

We can look at the choice issue in another way with a word substitution. Imagine if the question read: “How important is it to you that (Insert State) residents have a choice of service providers when it comes to high-speed Internet service – in other words, that there are more than two companies to choose from?” Or what if the second question read: “How interested would you be in having more companies to choose from for your high-speed Internet service?”

[ . . . ]

Once upon a time we had a flourishing, competitive Internet industry, with thousands and thousands of Internet Service Providers. Little by little regulatory decisions . . . whittled the once-flourishing industry down to next to nothing. Most of the country has no choice in broadband. Some places don’t have broadband, and won’t for the foreseeable future.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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