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American Broadband is Failing. Our Country’s Government has Some Explaining to do.

There shouldn’t be a discussion about whether the municipal networks are going to work or not. I dare-say that common sense tells us that some number will be successful, and some number will not. How you evaluate their outcomes relies almost entirely on your point of view.

The real, fundamental problem is that America has slow, expensive, and only partially available broadband when compared to just about every other industrialized nation. This is especially embarrassing considering that we invented the damn technology, and nurtured it for its first two decades.

This is a fact. No amount of hewing and hawing, or dancing around the subject will change this.

Another Fact: Our sorry state of broadband has occurred over the past 5 years. A period of time when Conservative Republicans have been running this country and calling (almost) all of the shots.

So, there arise two questions which I want answered by the leaders of this Country, the Republicans in charge, the FCC, and everyone else who’s been running our country:

Why is the state of broadband in America so awful?

What are you, our leaders, going to do about it?

You who are our leaders claim that you are doing a good job. Well, here we have a great example to the contrary. And I think that we, as the American People, deserve some answers.

And the answer isn’t more competition in the future and a more open marketplace with fewer regulations. That is an end result of good policy-making. I want to know what you’re doing that’s failing, and what you should be doing instead. If good policy is put into place, more competition in a healthy marketplace will happen by itself.

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Published:: 1.13.06 @ 12am
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I’ve been following this debacle for sometime now and it’s evident that our current government has much to do with the malaise of broadband deployment (among numerous other matters). This article is succint and very much encapsulates exactly what’s wrong in America regarding broadband.

There are numerous factors to cite. Most conspicuous is the Bush Administration is beholden to the corporate telco behemouths as is evidenced with the repealling of the original provisions incorporated into the Telecommunications Act that Clinton/Gore implemented back in the 90’s. The stipulation was that in exchange for subsidies and a lifting of rate caps, the telcos were to build and cultivate the backbone internet infrastructure neccessary to take us into the 21st century – doing so by sharing the pipelines with competing entities. Those provisions have been negated as of late owing to a number of bills recently passed guaranteeing the ‘status quo’ an unchallenged position by limiting and nullifying competition to a great degree. And now, these same corporate crooks are attempting to re-engineer the very foundation of the internet through ‘data prioritization’ and the like. A blatant attempt to purge the consumer to ‘pay more’ for new ‘premium tiered services’ in exchange for ‘increased reliability’ of the overall internet experience.

Mind you, the old axiom “if it ain’t broke dont fix it” should apply. But the way the telcos would have you think, you need to pony up more for them to continue to deliver what goods are already available. This travesty just indicates what happens when power goes unchecked. Read the new expose from Bruce Kushnick, ““The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal” to get a grasp of the scope of the ongoing fraud perpetrated upon the American public.

This is abject to witness this sorry state in America. Much of the American public has no inkling of how much is at stake and what we’re losing as a result of the deliberate retarding of broadband deployment and capacity here. We HAVE the capacity mind you (hence all of that unused dormant dark fiber sitting underground) but lack the initiative to utilize it. I suggest that an active attempt or campaign should be launched to get this matter into the public eye quickly.

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