Looking Past the Broadband Investment

On Thursday, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation released "The Need for Speed: The Importance of Next-Generation Broadband Networks." The report finds that America's current broadband speeds will not do in the future. The report makes the case for why it would be good economically and socially for America to have ubiquitous higher-speed broadband. It defines next-generation broadband speeds as anything that gives users download speeds of at least 20 megabits per second and upload speeds of 10 Mbps or more. The report shows "why next-generation broadband is so important," ITIF president Rob Atkinson said. The suggestion in ITIF's report that "communities should embrace private sector competition and not subsidize expensive third pipes when two or more providers are already providing broadband service" isn't likely to go over well with some in the public interest community. They complain that the cable-phone-company duopoly in some markets hasn't exactly resulted in particularly lower prices for consumers.

"We're just supposed to sit around and wait and hope these benevolent companies lower their prices?" said Derek Turner, research director at Free Press, a public interest group. "Cable companies are just now starting to get around to upgrading to (next-generation high-speed service) because Verizon started offering FiOS. It's a very slow-moving market if companies are left to their own devices."