As we approach the release of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan next week, the agency has mounted a major PR offensive, trickling out nuggets of information, hoping each one generates a favorable story.

It’s a savvy approach, but in a few days the rubber will meet the road. An area that hasn’t received a speech, a panel or a high-profile event with a famous puppet is the crucial issue of broadband competition.

Now when I think of improving U.S. broadband policy, it always ends up leading back to the issue of competition. We are all aware that if we want broadband (and I don’t mean anything "faster than dial-up"), we have at best the choice between one cable and one phone company.

As Blair Levin, the director of the Broadband Team noted in 2008, "The market is as competitive as it is ever going to be, as far as we can see. And it could become less competitive."

Yet when pressed on the issue of competition, the FCC still seems to be stuck in the close your eyes and hope approach that's been a hallmark of the agency for years.

If you hadn’t noticed, the cable industry dominates. DSL can’t compete with cable’s current speeds, and the fiber projects being deployed by the phone companies are only expected to reach 40 percent of consumers.

The FCC’s own broadband team even predicts that most Americans will be left with one viable broadband option, stating "50-80% of homes may get speeds they need from only one provider."

I honestly don’t know how the FCC could need any more evidence of the lack of competition in the current or future market for broadband, but just in case let’s take a look at the industry’s own documents.

What Cable Really Thinks

We have previously discussed the disparity between company statements to Wall Street and those made to the FCC.

A case in point is the recent conference put on by the investment firm Morgan Stanley, where Time Warner Cable executive Landell Hobbs offered his thoughts on broadband.

When talking to investors, as opposed to regulators, the cable industry isn’t raving about competition – but the complete and ongoing lack thereof. "We see tremendous growth if we do nothing else rather than compete, as we do today, against DSL in the majority of our footprint, and we continue to take share," Hobbs told the Morgan Stanley audience.

So get used to headlines like this: "Comcast broadband growth beats all Bells combined."

Here’s what Hobbs told the investors about price: "We still have a lot of pricing flexibility, or the ability to increase pricing around high-speed data."

That "flexibility" to jack up prices is already on display. Both cable and phone companies have been hiking prices, including Comcast (twice), AT&T (for both DSL and fiber), and pretty much all the other guys, too. Verizon has apparently given up competing on price altogether.

When talking to Washington, the cable companies love to boast about all of their plans for faster speeds. Don’t hold your breath waiting for speed upgrades, even though they are relatively inexpensive to do. Without competition, the cable industry doesn’t see the point.

"Remember, in most areas we don’t really need a product of that speed and caliber, and we are competing quite nicely and gaining share," Hobbs said referring to the industry’s vaunted DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades. "The reason we are being surgical is that, by and large, I compete against DSL in my footprint. And I’m very successful against DSL. My existing Roadrunner product is a better fundamental product when I am competing against DSL and taking share. So there I’m successful and product is working fine."

And cable sees wireless as an add-on — not any kind of real competition to its core products. "Now our wireless product has some pretty attractive speeds as well, some of the fastest that are out there," Hobbs said, "but we think it will be complementary. We don’t think of wireless as an incremental product bundle, we actually think of it as an extension of the existing products. It turns Roadrunner into Roadrunner mobile. And we are gonna sell it as a bundle and an extension of the product set. We don’t think it’s gonna be cannibalistic."

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this.

The Future of the Internet: Compete or Retreat?

Is the FCC even paying attention?

Let’s review: Wireless isn't a competitive threat, DSL can’t match cable's speeds, any upgrades will be done only for wealthy areas where the phone companies have fiber projects, and we can expect broadband prices to keep going up, up and up some more.

While the authors of the broadband plan tell everyone that it’s "absolutely wrong" to focus on a single aspect of plan, a plan without a serious focus on the competition problem will be no plan at all.

I guess we’ll know soon enough.