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Former FCC Chief Touts "Big Broadband"

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the infinite-bandwidth-now dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "Reed Hundt has a vision about building a 10 to 100 Mbps network for every household in the U.S. He makes a great case for why it should be done and how we can pay for it. What's interesting about this piece is that Hundt advocates a new approach to universal service. Instead of giving away broadcast spectrum (for HDTV) and maintaining (ancient, inflexible) phone lines, we should spend money on building out a next generation fiber network to every household, and run both HDTV and phone over that network. Then we can stop funding the phone network (which is pretty much maxed out anyway) and sell off the HDTV spectrum for 10s of billions of dollars."

2 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. It's being done elsewhere... by WTShaggy · · Score: 5, Informative
    We have fiber to the building from our local provider in Sweden, Bredbandsbolaget (lit. broadband company). Right now they only run fiber to apartment buidlings due to cost issues, and the cost of installation depends on the number of households in the building that agree from the start to take the service. (It's not outrageous, but I don't remember what it was.)

    It's very, very nice. We are supposed to get 10 Mbps symmetric, but typical speeds are a bit lower (something like 7-9). Granted that is somewhat confabulated by our use of WiFi at home as well. (Streaming full screen video to your laptop in bed... so what are YOU watching, eh?) Bandwidth-intensive applications were encouraged, last time I checked. Some TV stations are available as are movie downloads (real VoD!) and telephony.

    Cost is similar to DSL or cable here and is around SEK 400/mo or about USD 55. (Current exchange rates make that look higher than it feels here.)

    There is a similar service in Italy from Fastweb and in Iceland (I think by Reykjavik Energy).

  2. Utopian troubles by wasatched · · Score: 5, Informative

    The UTOPIA optical-fiber-to-home plan for Utah seems to be a sensible business plan for using public bonds to bring fiber to 18 cities, but it is (surprise) getting hammered by representatives from the local phone and cable companies, Qwest and Comcast. While their representatives don't seem to mind driving to legislative hearings on public roads, they do seem set against letting this project go ahead.

    One of the two area papers, the nominally non-LDS, liberal-ish one that is dominant in the affected metro area, doesn't like UTOPIA either, and thus covers it from that perspective.

    In another current, pressing theme, local politicians and newspapers fret over how to best bring high-paying high-tech (back) into the state.

    Does anyone have good examples of good high speed networks that bring in or otherwise enable the formation and growth of new industry? I would like to have these to forward to the UTOPIA folks and key legislative offices. (Disclosure: I am an ECE prof. at a U in the UTOPIA footprint.) The Utah legislature is in session for another couple of weeks.