Bay Area's broadband blues

[Commentary] DSL is quickly becoming yesterday's technology. As broadband speeds of 20-, 50- and even 100-megabits per second become available — allowing superfast downloading of movies, music and other data off the Internet — 2-megahit, or even 8-megahit, DSL just doesn't cut it any more. The problem is that if you want ultrafast Internet access in the San Francisco Bay Area, you typically have only one choice: Comcast. And because of this lack of competition, you can expect to pay through the nose for the privilege. You can thank government regulators for our lack of choice. A decade ago, when dial-up Internet access was the norm, you could choose from dozens of providers. With so many rivals, you could find Internet access at a reasonable price all by itself, without having to buy a bundle of other services with it. There was competition because regulators forced the local phone giants to allow such services on their networks. But regulators backed away from open-access rules as the broadband era got under way. While local phone and cable companies could permit other companies to use their networks to offer competing services, regulators didn't require them to do so and cable providers typically didn't. Former Federal Communications Commission Chairmen Michael Powell and Kevin Martin promised you'd get better competition by encouraging companies to build their own networks rather than by competing over networks already in place. That's turned out to be a pipe dream.