BellSouth has just announced that it will start selling a new high-speed broadband service in the fourth quarter of 2005 that will deliver residential and business customers downstream connection speeds of up to 6Mbps. Thanks to ADSL2, the Bells are upping the bandwidth ante as well!
Why is this news? I had 6Mbps DSL from SBC 18 months ago–well before any of the cable providers in this area had anything anywhere near that speed. What I’d like to see is SBC pushing right on past that–I’d especially like them to double my 700kbps upload speed.
I am not sure what to say tim, except that to many people in the bellsouth territory that is news. for few like yourself, and (myself) 6 megabits per second happened a little while ago. most of the people are still struggling with the 384 kbps.
You’re joking me. Here in the Netherlands, we’re past 8 Mbps and in France, the providers are talking 15 Mbps symmetrical (ADSL+) for 35 EUR per month.
well that’s the difference… anyway smaller countries can roll out higher speed dsl because of the distance issues – the distance between a co and homes in europe is exactly the half of that in the US, if you take out urban centers like washington dc and new york and chicago
If distance is a problem, then why is it that NY and Philadelphia do not have 15 Mbps+ broadband? Parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx do not even have broadband. I’ll bet right in the center of Manhattan, they don’t have 15 Mbps symmetrical for $45. And that’s with a population that can pay even more than $45.
I think we know WHY that is and it’s time for people to stop propagating the same old lame excuses.
Oh, France is not small. But you know what, they’re spending public funds to roll out a broadband network in rural areas (so is Wales). The government will not be the ISP. It’s wholesaling access to ISPs, including ISPs owned by cable and telecoms companies. They recognize that NO private company would be willing to spend all that money building out infrastructure that will take years to earn back — but it’s still infrastructure that is necessary for economic growth. So the government builds it out and allows private companies – as many as possible – to deliver access. Isn’t that a pretty good model?
The problem in the US is that the telcos want to own both the infrastructure layer and the service provision layer – they want it all. And Americans are very unfortunate to have a government that’s willing to go along with the telcos at the expense of the vast majority of people. The telcos and cablecos with their vast armies of lobbyists and contributions to politicians . . . this is how national broadband policy is being made today in the US. In the meantime, the rest of the world just marches on….
Preach on sister preach on! Viva la revolucion!
It’s all about the American dollar over here. People don’t matter.