Comments on: New FCC chairman sees broadband as priority

Julius Genachowski tells The Wall Street Journal in one of his first interviews as chairman that he would like to see affordable broadband service for all Americans.

[rmva]

If he had announced that landlines were a priority, that would have been news! This, not so much.

[iptofar]

Why can't people just pay for what they get rather than picking someone else's pockets for their "necessities"? Broadband is hardly a necessity for life.

[PhaseDMA]

When 3rd world countries can get something at better quality, and a lower price then America there starts to be a major issue. Is broadband a necessity? No. Will it be sooner then later? Yes.

Do the majority of Americans want cheap internet access? Yes.

Should this be a federal government concern? Yes.

[pwrhamr]

If you had school children you would see the benefit of broadband. It levels the playing field for kids in low income and especially rural areas. Besides reference sites you can actually teach classes online. Cant do that with dial-up.
It allows individual business people in economically depressed or, again, rural areas to get their product sold world wide. Dial-up just isnt economical for downloading graphics and pictures to show your product.
That is just a couple of things it can do that are "necessities".

[boji55]

Its about time the US gets faster internet for a lower price, I am currently living in Bulgaria for business reasons and I get 50mbits for 20 bucks on a Ethernet connection straight in my house.

[mbenedict]

You know last year the European Commission ranked Bulgaria's telecom services quality dead *last* in the EU, right?

Sure you can get cheap broadband local-loop in small parts of Bulgaria (which has the lowest broadband access ratio in the EU, under 8%) but high-speed means nothing without quality and reliability. E.g., that 50 mbps line you have is only to the local telco station, for connections to domestic Bulgarian servers. Try to connect to a server outside Bulgaria and the connection drops to DSL speeds.

So, the few Bulgarians who have broadband access are basically paying for DSL service over ethernet at an average price of 45 leva (20 euro; US$30) per month... which is no bargain.

[boji55]

I get 50 mbits its a Ethernet connection form my house to the switch outside which then connects to an optic cable and i do get about 35mbits to LA from Bulgaria with about 100ms latency which is not that good , I will never ever get ADSL or DSL connection in Bulgaria because that's my job currently and just from the knowledge that I have I think internet over telephone wire is the worst internet access that you can have. In my opinion.

[redmarine]

Meh... Having a decent internet connection doesn't cost anything major these days and it's actually pretty cheap here in Europe. It's actually laughable that it costs so much in the US and that not everyone is able to get it. In my country every household can get a broadband if they wanted as the connection is there.