About Professor Tim Wu’s recent New York Times oped, a few comments:

His essay begins, “If we aren’t careful, [the U.S. is] going to repeat the history of the oil industry by creating a bandwidth cartel.” Really? If the past decade shows anything, it’s the stunning progress America has made in improving the availability of new and better broadband options. In short, precisely the opposite of a bandwidth cartel.

A decade ago (not adjusting for inflation), basic DSL cost $70/month in Pennsylvania, $60/month in the Rocky Mountain states, and $90/month in California. Since then, prices have plunged while online speeds and access choices have surged. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi spots are in every coffee shop and more than 15 million users have signed up for wireless broadband, which is also getting faster.

Seems like a pretty odd “cartel.”

Wu’s major focus is on what he calls the “pressing need to explore all alternative supplies of bandwidth before it is too late.” But the idea of adding bandwidth alone is a discredited (and monumentally expensive!) model for handling consumers’ Internet needs. Even the Japanese, with their sophisticated networks, have accepted the need to manage traffic data to keep up with P2P filesharing.

The real problem with Wu’s argument is that it almost completely ignores the need for across-the-board investment incentives – for unproven and proven technologies. To take one example, PBS technologist Bob Cringely recently observed that Cisco’s new Nexus 7000 router, when fully tricked-out, could support around one million concurrent users. He continued that this will “undoubtedly set a new low cost point for per-subscriber hardware” and that Cisco “is going to sell a lot of these puppies” to IPTV providers.

That’s the kind of technology coming to market and consumers will wind up the beneficiaries as quality improves and prices continue to drop.

But the key is that will only happen if the regulatory climate remains conducive to investment, network management and new deployment. Judging by Prof. Wu’s previous embrace of Net neutrality and his selective silence on network management and new investment, this is a reality he should consider.