How Much Should Broadband Cost?

An anonymous reader writes "The difference in cost between broadband options seems to be the primary motivator for consumer spending, reports News.com. Frugal consumers are opting for the lower-priced DSL options, while those with more money to spend on services are opting for cable modems." From the article: "A year-and-a-half ago, pricing of DSL and cable modem service was roughly the same. But over the past year, the phone companies have launched an aggressive assault by dropping prices. At the end of 2005, the average price of DSL service was about $32 per month, roughly $9 less than cable, according to research firm IDC. AT&T has twice lowered the price of its DSL service and now offers its 1.5Mbps service for $12.99 for the first year."

Comments

$0?

[Mateo_LeFou]

Broadband should be free -- provided by spread-spectrum radio-on-chip systems that people just generally get used to requested when they buy laptops, cellphones, automobiles, etc.

These scale backward: the more users, the better your connection.

Re:It's the government, stupid.

[Pig Hogger]

It's not the "frea mahkit", because your local telco owns the copper by law, and your local cableco owns the cable by law. A mass of heavy regulations keeps the competition at bay. What little competition there is exists in the DSL side, but you pay extra for the non-telco due to rent seeking.

It may be so in the Croporate States von Amerika (heil Dubya!), but in other places, where governments are not p0wn3d by the croporations, the law says to the big bad telecom it **HAS** to open the last-mile to other companies ("competitors") and cannot lowball their DSL prices.