IT Professionals

Free Broadband – It Might Happen Here In The States

Posted by on May 30, 2008 | 2 Comments

Remember back in the 1990′s when you could get free access to the Internet from a growing number of dial-up ISPs? Well these days, broadband is “it” and unlike its dial-up ancestors, today’s internet options are so restricted that it is nearly impossible to enjoy the provided speed for fear of upsetting the ISP overlords. Granted, to a limited extent, I can move to another ISP. Yet many live in locations where this is simply not an option.

Luckily, it appears that this could begin to change. If the FCC has their way, we could see the beginning of free broadband on a large scale. Speaking for myself, I would be perfectly happy seeing some new blood coming into compete rather than giving me a free handout. I have no problem paying for my Internet access, just as long as my ISP stops telling me how to use it!

I’d rather witness a ton of small business minded companies, anxious to win your business, landing themselves the same kind of opportunities we saw in the ’90′s with dial-up ISPs. Back then when AOL made you mad, you would just roll over to Earthlink, or to a local provider even. These days, we realistically do not have this freedom – might be interesting to see the FCC light some a few fires underneath some well placed backsides to stir up some legitimate competition. Thoughts?

  • PeterPac

    I was just commenting on this in the opensuse forum about ISP’s curtting people off who use torrents. It reminds me of the days when everyone is guilty until proven innocent. SuSe 11.0 is due out soon and is receiving a lot of favorable publicity but if the new user gets cut off by their ISP for using a torrent to download it is going to be a black eye on SuSe.

    I have been stalled and cut off numerous times recently downloading the betas by Cox Comm and when I called them I was accused of illegal downloading or pirating. I even have a copy of a email they sent me and I am not even on the low tier schedule. This needs to be addressed and not next year but as soon as possible. Cities within the US have cable and dsl monopolies that will not let competitiors in thus the user is stuck.

    I feel everyone using cable or dsl should be sending complaints by the tons to the FCC and I know I have. ISP’s have taken the road of punishing everyone for the ones doing illegal downloads and until the connection business is opened to competition we as the end users will suffer because just a few companies own the access routes.

  • http://www.matthartley.com Matt Hartley

    Peter: If you still have correspondence from you and them, I would be interested in writing about it while using this as an example.