Broadband Is Dead (Or At Least Very Ill)

Thornkin writes: "Broadband is dead. That is the proclamation of tech pundit Robert Cringely. With Excite@Home turning away new customers and going bankrupt along with most of the DSL companies, things are bleak and will get worse. The icing on the cake could be this bill which would remand the requirement for local phone providers to open their networks before competing in the long distance market." And at a different scale, apparently the DSL circuits in Blacksburg, VA (a place which liked to claim it was "the most wired town in America" not long ago) are now full, and turning away residential customers.

Comments

Prices will rise, at worst

[Publicus]

As long as there are customers who demand a product, there will be a seller. Especially because of all the infrastructure that has now been put in place. Providers aren't going to suddenly start digging up cables because broadband isn't as profitable as they thought.

Cringley says that the industry will see little or no growth, and then a sentence later he claims that will lead to its decline. That's just silly. Cable modem went up $10 bucks a month for me last month. That doesn't mean I'm going to give it up, it's just too nice. Besides, if it wasn't for my cable modem - I wouldn't be able to get thousands of dollars worth of free software.