Well, I want one or the other, not the current model, which regulates higher profits for cable companies for reduced service.

Lets put it this way: there's a reason Europe has much better internet than the US- it's not population density or wealth, but government investments and regulations designed to prevent monopolies.   That's the real problem- we have broadband monopoly, and trustbusting is dead in the US.

Hybrid cars are more expensive than gasoline cars, and there isn't a good secondary market yet.  Also, repairs are more expensive.  Etc.

To what degree is it subsidzed by your government?

Really? Cars are the second largest investments people make, therefore apples and oranges. How about a more suitable comparison... like another utility.

You write about a free market and letting it determine the course. The whole point is that currently it isn't a free market. The point is how to get it to become one.

Regulating ISP's got us into the mess we're in, returning to our regulated environment would be stupid.  They talk about how we used to have great internet a decade back, but they ignore that the only decent internet we had was piggybacked on existing cable networks.  They also ignore that our internet essentially stayed in a static condition for several years while the rest of the world left us behind.

We used to regulate competition in, and it killed the drive to advance.  Now we're regulating competition out, and it's accomplished the same thing.  The big companies get free money courtesy of your taxes, and they use it to keep the politicians on their side.  Unless we kill off all the politicians, any regulation will likely advance the problem, not a solution.

Not sure you can compare Hong Kong's Internet service to ours.

While they may have faster service for less expense, they also have censorship that limits content.

The major problem with all of this was the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that was signed into law by Clinton. While it looked good on paper, the opposite of the intent happened and the major companies bought up the smaller ones.  

Looking this up, I found this:  http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20000905-265.html?_escaped_fragment_=

I remember Google pulling out of the PRC and setting up its search engine in Hong Kong (or routing it through Hong Kong).

The point of the OP isn't to idealize Hong Kong, rather to point to speed and cost. Kansas City and Google's experiment there is just as good.

As for the Telecommunications Act of 1996 - cashing out and leveraged buyouts were the big thing then. I still believe that making money available through low interest, long term loans through the CFA is the way to go.

We need the infrastructure expansion. The jobs created won't be bad either.

I live in small town in central Europe and I have 40/20 down/up optic fiber for 12 EUROs per month. No FUP. Fucking yes. 

BTW i dont think there are any subventions by government over here, not regarding internet at least. It actually seems to be a competition, just a year ago, i was still on 2Mbit DSL for 18 EUROs per month, provided by local Telecom company (which is partially owned by Deutsche Telekom)...and there wasnt really any better alternative. Until these guys, called Digi, showed up with the aforementioned deal, which was really difficult to turn down. They are i believe a Romanian company by origin and they are quite new over here, so i suppose they try hard to take over customers from existing companies...and they do it well i have to say. So they can have my money and Telecom can fuck off. 

The OZ experience ...

We had a company, Telstra, in charge of telecommunications in Australia which was run by the government, a huge company which basically had all of the copper and phone networks. Around twenty+ years ago a conservative government decided to privatize it, so there will be 'greater competition' in the market, prices will go down and there will be a greater choice in the market. The people of Australia didn't want it to happen, it was our company, our infrastructure and we were happy about the status quo ... and we knew it was a cash grab by the government.

Anyway it was floated and privatized. The company, like all companies, didn't want any competition and because it had the copper wires made it hard for other companies to compete.

Further down the track ... after price increases, poor maintenance to the infrastructure and terrible customer services ... the new government wasn't happy how we were left behind and wanted to upgrade our network to the digital age with optical cabling. Telstra was making a fortune out of the old copper network and didn't want to invest into new infrastructure, why should they, profits were good, no real competition (only in the mobile market, just). They told the government to go and jump.

After many years of fist shaking ... the government made a new company to lay down the new optical network, Telstra came on board when they thought about all of the money they will loose and is now helping the government. The cost will be huge to the tax payer in the short term, the network will pay for itself in the future and we will get the infrastructure Australia deserves. Although the conservative opposition wants to scrap it and put in a 'faster' (??) network based on mobile technology...

We never wanted Telstra to be sold off in the first place, we want a optical network and yet powerful people, with a strong ideology, keep telling us how private companies do to right thing for our country ... no they don't, they look after themselves.

Just to talk about North Carolina again, a list needs to be made on who is in the pockets of Time Warner and ATT. And vote them out of office, what they did is about the same time Chattanooga, TN brought in Giga speeds and were the fastest in the country till Google came in to Kansas City KS/MO. Yea Google, yeah the snoop you emails so they can sell you stuff, but who doesn't these days...

Where I live in the North East, everyone overlaps, Verizon, Time Warner, Cablevision. Google is forcing competition which is good for all of us in the long run, better service speeds at lower cost to the consumer. But the downside is it is going to be a while before Google wires up the US....

Because of the laws... and the financing. Optic cable isn't cheap. The only way to finance it is via the government or a consortium. Did anyone ever try to put one together?

Did anyone bother to bring suit on the grounds that the company has to buy out what it owes to the people of Oz for the equipment and lines?

You don't have to have big entities for the network.  It will just be a bunch of little companies servicing smaller areas.

Right on!  The sale of Telstra [formerly Telecom] was the single worst thing to happen to telecommunications in Australia:

* One; it failed to properly maintain the copper network... thus it is forever breaking down, getting congested and overloaded.

* Two; it's monopoly status ensured it could charge whatever it wanted and people would have no choice but to pay.

* Three, Telstra's ownership of the copper network means that competitors must pay it in order to operate, thus competitors are forced to charge higher prices than necessary to cover high wholesale prices to Telstra.

* Four, Testra's ownership of the terminals that service households and businesses means that is has the NBN [National Broadband Network] by the short and curlies.  The NBN, although it will own its own firbre optic network, still has to cow tow to Telstra in order to deliver its services.

* Five, we already owned the copper network and terminals, it belonged to the taxpayer, and now were being forced to pay again for this poorly maintained, rundown equipment as it charges the NBN rental fees on the terminals.

Sadly, the orchestrators of the NBN did not forsee this situation to create its own terminals... as self-sufficiency would have provided consumers with better than Telstra prices.  As it is, those who have been connected are paying premuim prices for high speed broadband because Telstra controls the terminals

Telstra is too big. It was a giant profitable company before the government sold it, all they did was make a monopoly. The government first went to Telstra to build a fiber network, Telstra didn't like having to let other Telcos use the network at cost price, that and they had control of the copper network and was able to keep wholesale prices high.

When the government put forward the NBN, all the other Telcos were on board and wanted it to happen. So Telstra threaten to build a fiber network as well, basically to make the NBN unprofitable and to keep their monopoly. If the government didn't have the guts to take them on and forced their hand by calling them a monopoly, and a threat to split the company up, we will still be on a copper line for the next fifty years .... or more.

Markets work when there's competition. Once a few companies controls an infrastructure, prices go up and maintenance goes down.

Ah, I thought the NBN would take control of the terminals ... so much for keeping prices down.

Sen.Tillman from Randolph County is one of the big ones- but good luck kicking out folks in gerrymandered districts.   Sad thing is that at a personal level, his family is pretty nice, but he's a horrible politician.

Just what I said as well. Someone should bring suit. Really.