Service Unavailable: The Failure of Competition Community Broadband Bits Podcast 196
b'If you are paying close attention to discussions about broadband policy, you may have come across Fred Pilot\'s reminders that competition is not a cure-all for our Internet access woes across the United States. The blogger and author joins us for episode 196 of Community Broadband [no-glossary]Bits[/no-glossary].\\n\\nFred Pilot\'s new book, Service Unavailable: America\'s Telecommunications Infrastructure Crisis, discusses some of the history behind our current challenges and proposes a solution centered around federal funding and cooperatives. \\n\\nWe discuss the switch from telecommunications as a regulated utility, to which everyone was guaranteed access, to a system relying on competition, in which some people have many choices but others have no options. We also discuss the merits of a national solution vs encouraging more local approaches with federal financial assistance. \\n\\nFred\'s blog is Eldo Telecom and you can follow him on Twitter.\\n\\nRead the transcript from this show here.\\n\\nWe want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. \\n\\nThis show is 30 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. \\n\\nYou can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index.\\n\\nThanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Player vs. Player."'