Captive Audience

For other uses, see Captive audience (disambiguation).

Captive Audience

Author	Susan P. Crawford
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Yale University Press
Publication date	2013
Pages	360 pp.
ISBN	978-0300153132

Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age is an American non-fiction book by the legal expert Susan P. Crawford.

Summary

It describes high-speed internet access in the United States as essential (like electricity) but currently too slow and too expensive. To enable widespread quality of life and to ensure national competitiveness "most Americans should have access to reasonably priced 1-Gb symmetric fiber-to-the-home networks." Crawford explains why the United States should revise national policy to increase competition in a market currently dominated by Comcast, Verizon Communications, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable. Meanwhile, towns and cities should consider setting up local networks after the example of pioneers such as Lafayette, Louisiana's LUSFiber and Chattanooga, Tennessee's EPB.

See also

• Institute for Local Self-Reliance
• Comcast NBC merger
• Criticism of Comcast
• Federal Communications Commission
• National Broadband Plan (United States)
• Municipal broadband
• Cities with Municipal Wireless Networks

Further reading

• Cecilia Kang (March 2, 2013). "Controversial activist takes on the telecom industry". Washington Post.
• Brian X. Chen (February 19, 2013). "One on One: Susan P. Crawford, Author of 'Captive Audience'". New York Times.
• Sam Gustin (January 9, 2013). "Is Broadband Internet Access a Public Utility?". Time.
• John B. Judis (April 30, 2013). "The Next Elizabeth Warren". New Republic.

External links

• Official website
• "Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly and Unfair". Moyers & Company. PBS. February 8, 2013.
• After Words interview with Crawford on Captive Audience, August 3, 2013