Demand Super-Fast Broadband in the US
An article in the NY Times yesterday really upset me. If you live in the US, it should upset you as well.
Hong Kong has a broadband service that costs less than $26 a month. This option for its fiber-to-the-home service offers a speed of 1,000 megabits a second. A gig. To put that into perspective, Verizon offers the “fastest” broadband in the country for $145. It’s speed: 50 megabits down, 20 megabits up.
“Why doesn’t Verizon offer gigabit service?” Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic.net asks. “Because it doesn’t have to.”
We are sheep. We need an Apple 1984 moment. Someone needs to throw a sledgehammer through somebody’s screen to wake us up.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The Internet is not an option that people can boycott. We can’t turn it off. We need our broadband. As such, it will take a bold company to produce the demand. We need a company that is willing to push the limits, building the infrastructure, and supply the speeds that will force the rest of the ISPs to respond.
Will it be Google? Verizon? The US Government? There are so many possibilities out there, but nobody is stepping up yet.
If you are “in the know” about a company that needs support, please tell us. We will help get the word out through social media. We will blast it out there for the masses to see. Slow Internet is no longer an option. We need someone to step up today.
Who will it be?
Google already offers free gigabit service in their hometown
If the government get’s involved, it’ll all go to hell. and Wall Street can’t be trusted to it, because they want to control it, for profit. Change will have to come from off shore. We’re screwed.
I like how you require that this has to be done by someone for no profit. You know…buy land, build infrastructure, get licenses, pay employees, spend 5 years setting up some sort of base network, NOT get bought out by one of the bigger companies, deal with government regulation.
For no profit.
Good luck with that.
Luckily, some of us have better options. The Electric Power Board in Chattanooga, TN offers fiber in speeds of 30, 50, 100 and 1000 Mbps.
I live really close to Google and there is rumor going around that they are laying down Fiber Optic cables for residents of Mountain View and surrounding areas. It’s said that it will be more reasonably priced than (Comcast’s?) 50 mbps down and 20 up, which actually clocks in at 65 down and 27 up for me right now… Curious to know what you believe we need that much speed for though, because there is little I have to wait for with just what I do have.
Faster is always better. And why shouldn’t we have faster speeds if we’re such a “great and leading nation?” China, one of our communist doucher counterparts is ahead of us, obviously, by a long shot. And for FAR cheaper. “Curious” as to why you don’t think we should be able to get those speeds in America….
and they still want to use data caps?