This is what happens when vital services such as Internet service are controlled by one or two huge companies. The companies raise their prices with impunity, practically daring anyone to do anything about it. That’s because cable and telecom companies know they are almost always the only game in town for consumers when it comes to serviceable Internet service.

Against that infuriated and ongoing backdrop, we were heartened to hear some comments from Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn this week.

Clyburn was talking about the agency’s upcoming National Broadband Plan, set to be unveiled next week. Of particular note, she said the plan would recommend the creation of a National Digital Literacy Corp designed to encourage and help the 93 million Americans who do not currently have broadband service at home to get online.

Comcast’s and AT&T’s latest rounds of rate hikes – and their remarkably bad timing – did not go unnoticed by Clyburn.

We’ll let her take if from here:

“The same day we announced these important recommendations designed to usher more Americans into the digital age, however, I learned that another major broadband provider is raising its rates for its lowest tiers of broadband service,” she said. “This news came on the heels of plans unveiled by other major providers throughout the country to increase prices as well. So, just as we are in the process of proposing steps to ensure that more people are comfortable signing up for broadband service, providers of that very service are raising prices.”

Then she got to the bigger problem – and the primary cause.

“If we are serious as a nation – both public and private sectors – about connecting America; about leading the world technologically and economically; about ensuring that all Americans have meaningful access to on-line education, healthcare, and information essential to citizenry, then we should be very concerned about these ominous signs. For if our push to increase broadband adoption – including through Lifeline subsidies – merely results in higher prices for the lowest-income consumers, programs like the National Digital Literacy Corps will be for naught.”

Then she delivered a well deserved shot across the bow to the country’s big ISP companies/duopolies.

“Across-the-board price increases, especially on those who can least afford it, should raise a red flag for the Commission. When prices rise across the industry, and where there are only a limited number of players in the game, we have to ask ourselves whether there is any meaningful competition in the marketplace. Moreover, when executives from major broadband providers indicate that they will only roll out faster speeds in the few markets where they have competition, our fears about whether meaningful competition exists should grow. If we fail to think deeply about these issues, consumers will suffer, and low-income Americans in particular will be left long behind.”

We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves, Commissioner Clyburn. We hope your fellow commissioners, Congress, the White House and – especially – the big ISPs, are listening.