MuniWireless and TechDirt describe a recent book that claims telephone companies have scammed approximately $200 billion from all of us (about $2,000 per household), promising fiber to every home with symmetric 45 Mbps speeds and an open access model.
For the last decade, those same telcos have made promise after promise to local governments concerning the delivery of truly open fiber optic connections to the home. In exchange, they've been granted all sorts of privileges and rate increases by the government, costing all of us money. And where did the money go? Not towards what was promised.
This is a promise that they have not kept… though, they have kept our money. In fact, after all of these promises, remember that the telcos said they wouldn't offer fiber at all, unless the FCC promised not to require them to let others offer services on it.
Kushnick's book is called the $200 Billion Broadband Scandal.
In 2006 and beyond, I view there are only two viable courses of action that can guide the US to a broadband future equivalent to what other countries are enjoying now.
1) Get legislators behind a movement to prohibit content discrimination (I'm using this phrase loosely and imprecisely) on telco and cableco networks.2) Encourage, in all manner, the construction of alternative methods of broadband delivery – more spectrum, including license-exempt, allow water companies or any other entities to carry Internet, repeal stupid laws that restrict government entities to build alternative broadband networks, etc.That's it.