Earlier this week, I came across this post on Broadband Reports, which highlighted the recent trend in Europe of Barebones Broadband. Actually this is a pretty clever idea from companies which are selling the high-speed Internet service. Why? Take me as an example. I have SBC/Yahoo DSL but I have never used their portal or their email service. I have my own domain name and end up using that for my blog, my storage server, and also as my email server. I prefer it that way. I can move cities, carriers, continents … never have to bother with changing anything at any point. I am waiting for SyncML servers to come out, and that would make me more in control of my own information. Unlike me, there are others who have say a Hotmail account. And have a web presence via say, TypePad. They again don’t need the expensive and utterly ridiculous portals many of the broadband service providers try and put together. Like me, there is a market for some early adopters and complete newbies who don’t need to worry about the frills that come with say Comcast, Roadrunner or SBC DSL. I would gladly give up all the extras for a little discount or trade it in for more bandwidth. What do you folks think?