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Broadband Usage Up 42% In The U.S. In 2003

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the for-which-figures-are-available dept.

Kickassthegreat writes "As reported here by Reuters, broadband usage in the U.S. jumped 42 percent in 2003 as compared to 2002. As more people sign on to high-speed access, how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?"

3 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. Ummm... by saintan · · Score: -1, Redundant

    not gonna happen. period.

    --
    ****--- A fortune cookie once told me the meaning of life...so I ate it. ---****
  2. Never by iamdrscience · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Never. They don't need to for a couple of reasons. First of all, cable companies have a monopoly similar to Bell's monopoly over the phone system before they were split up. True, there isn't just _one_ cable provider nationwide (although things are moving that way!) but locally, you can only use whoever owns the cable in your area and if you don't want to use them, you're SOL for cable. Beyond their monopoly though, they still won't need to drop prices. Keeping prices as they are today, broadband will continue to grow as more and more dialup users feel the need for broadband. Dialup users will dwindle. Dialup probably won't disappear for a while though because it still has some applications (i.e. people traveling on business can use it in their hotel, and not every hotel has broadband yet). With the drop in users, dialup prices may even go up! I suspect broadband prices will stay around where they are now for the next few years (raising marginally) but after that, there will be a number of price hikes (far beating inflation) and at some point (maybe I'm being hopeful here) people will realize the danger of the cable monopolies and the laws will be changed.

  3. cuI8 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

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