Got a cable modem? Me too. How fast is yours? Mine is on the AT&T Broadband Internet backbone and the maximum downstream is 1,500 kbps — 1.5Mbps. Not bad.

But for $60/mo, certainly not great. That’s why it’s such a shame that Michael Powell‘s FCC is working to roll back the open access requirements for the copper wires your local telephone company currently controls.

Consider Japan. On that island, this company (classy photo, eh?) offers 8 times the downstream speed I get, for less than half the price. (That’s 12 Mbps for $26/mo.)

So-called “platform competition” (i.e. cable v. DSL v. satellite) is not going to do it alone — how many markets have just a cable company and a disinterested telco? We need legislation to force telco companies to provide non-discriminatory access to all comers at a reasonable rate, then watch the cost of bandwidth fall.

[This post was inspired in part by the almighty Lessig.]

This entry was posted on Monday, November 25th, 2002 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Miscellany.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.