One estimate of over $200 Billion has gone in extra payments and fee allowances to telecoms.
In Pennsylvania, Verizon et al. were given billions of extra fees, in return they were to provide high speed broadband of T1 speed or better. They took the fees, but did not deliver the broadband; later it was found that due to the way the law was worded, no penalty for non-performance could be applied.
IMHO, the ONLY thing that telecoms understand is force or the threat of force. Get serious about opening up rights of way that the state government already has, to all comers, and they will act quickly to drop prices and improve service.
No kidding. Apparently getting your city to build its own fiber network is a sure fire way to get a telecom off its ass, as demonstrated by a Minnesota suburb:
Similar problems in Illinois, particularly with regard to SBC, now AT&T (SBC bought the hollowed shell of AT&T, many people believe largely for the name/brand identity).
Oh, and, in response to another commentor on this thread with regard to lobbying influence, it's worth thinking for a few minutes about who in DC is from / has ties to Illinois. Telecom has a lot of clout in Illinois; the SBC, now AT&T, corporate headquarters is located in the Chicago suburbs.
I'm still not sold on the idea that we all need 100Mbit+ Internet connections. It's like building 4 lane highways to replace rural backroads. Most people aren't going to pay significantly more so it's not an appealing venture for private companies to make on their own except where competition exists and they have to offer more competitive packages in an effort to play defense. They're not doing it because offering a wideband connection brings in tons of new customers or more revenue from existing customers. It's purely a defensive move. There's also some question of how much bandwidth is enough. I move from a 10Mbit connection at home to a 100Mbit+ connection at work and I don't notice any difference. Sure files download quicker but we're talking 10 seconds versus 20 seconds in most cases. I can't really think of anything I can't do on a 10Mbit/sec connection. I'm also at a loss to figure out what room exists for innovation. Better quality streaming video? Sure I guess so but all things considered that's not my top concern.
So instead of focusing on raw speed maybe we should be focusing on reliability, pricing, latency, improved customer service, and a modest increase in speeds to get us all to this 10-15Mbit/sec range that is completely acceptable performance. Get people some choice so they at least have 2 or 3 providers and, over time, they will compete with each other as faster speeds are actually something customers need/want and not just a statistic that has almost no real meaning today.
Is there anything that you do in the office or within your home LAN that you can't do remotely? Extremely large video files, transparent network storage, etc.? Then you'll find a use for 100 mbit Internet.
Well, I don't know about the US. But I went from xDSL to FTTB (& FTTH) in Sweden and it's cheaper, more reliable and have less latency. I can choose between speeds ranging from 1 to 100Mbit, from eight diffrent ISPs [1]. If you want good performance you need to install new cables and, if done right, FTTP is just the best way to do it.
Remote/cloud backup is a common use case for the masses that would benefit greatly from a very high speed connection. It's already main stream (plenty of TV commercials), but it really sucks to do that initial backup of 250GB.
Be sure to include a more reasonable approach to usage (volume) caps. As it is, many providers imposing caps in the U.S. provide little or no flexibility with regard to those caps. You can't purchase additional volume, or you can do so only at exorbitant rates, where a small additional volume can cost you as much or much more than your initial monthly service fee.
Bad enough for solely home use, but imagine having your work-at-home connection held hostage by such a cap / rate structure, particularly if you combine work and home use on a single subscription (something that, aside from otherwise being more economical, is perhaps even necessary, if your area is serviced by only one provider and/or physical delivery medium).
(And its all the scarier if you have kids who might max out your allocation before you know it.)
Perhaps if someone researched where most telecom lobbying dollars went - and which government/(congressional?) positions tend to have their people siphoned off by the telecom corporations... we might discover where there is disincentive to get these recommendations into action.
As one famous whistle-blower said, "follow the money." [/cynicism]
AT&T stopped by my home to say that they ran fiber (uverse) to my building. Great, but I have to buy a TV subscription to get internet from them! Same policy from Verizon FIOS.
Ironically, my cable company allows me to get internet only and they are faster (20/2 vs 18/1.5). Certainly none them are 100Mbps.
"And a huge chunk of the population (over 30 percent) never go online at all—less because they're retired and not interested; more often because they can't afford the prices."
From the survey, the main reasons given for no internet use at any location are...
Don't Need/Not Interested: 47.2%
No Computer or Computer Inadequate: 22.3%
Too Expensive: 18.6%
Lack of Skill: 4.3%
Can Use Somewhere Else: 1.4%
Other: 5.5%
To me, it looks like more people don't go online because they aren't interested (47.2%) than because they can't afford it (22.3%+18.6% = 40.9%).
Of Americans without internet access (31.3% of the population) only 18.6% go without because of the cost of access. That's just 5.8% of population who can't afford access, which seems like a very small fraction to me. Now, slightly more of those without access attribute it to a lack of a computer, but this isn't something that can be fixed through the market for internet access.
In Pennsylvania, Verizon et al. were given billions of extra fees, in return they were to provide high speed broadband of T1 speed or better. They took the fees, but did not deliver the broadband; later it was found that due to the way the law was worded, no penalty for non-performance could be applied.
IMHO, the ONLY thing that telecoms understand is force or the threat of force. Get serious about opening up rights of way that the state government already has, to all comers, and they will act quickly to drop prices and improve service.