Former FCC chairman's plan:

[Guest LilBambi]

Former FCC chairman's plan: broadband in every home

HUNDT-ING BROADBAND: A former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is pitching a plan to wire American homes with true broadband data connections, and he wants taxpayers to subsidize the project directly, while ditching another federal mandate that amounts to a hidden tax.A serious national broadband policy -- designed to bring 10 to 100 megabits of information per second to every home -- would be as crucial an economic-development and infrastructure tool as the roads of the previous century, Reed Hundt said at the Supernova technology conference in suburban Washington on Tuesday. Hundt served as FCC chairman during the first Clinton administration and is currently a senior adviser to consulting firm McKinsey & Co."There are some things you should throw money at,'' he said.Hundt is arguing that broadband should be subsidized by federal taxpayers to the tune of $20 a month per household for as long as it takes to build the system. This subsidy is enough incentive, he says, to create a business model for laying the fiber-optic data pipes we'll need for this kind of speed. He's arguing against the current model, which urges both the cable-TV and phone companies to deploy fast pipes.Competing broadband lines -- the generation beyond copper DSL and coaxial cable -- would be superfluous because one fiber line is more than enough to handle data, voice and video needs. But Hundt says, wisely, that the entity installing the network should not control the data that flows through the pipes.Hundt says the cost of this project, enough to bring fiber to 100 million homes, would be about $50 billion. We could quickly recover much of that by ending the universal service phone subsidies, which would no longer be needed once all voice traffic moved as data, he says.

More in the article and some additional items of possible interest as well below this article on the page.Apparently the broadband in every home proposal is only half-baked at this time.$20/mo per household, per month for an undefined period of time for a huge project that could take decades to complete. Hmmmmm .... and this appears to be in addition to the broadband company's monthly fee ???The article was written by Dan Gillmor, Mercury News Technology Columnist.

[SonicDragon]

What about distance limitations? That could cause a few problems too right?The main thing i don't like about this is by the time the project is completed DSL will probably be yesterday's news and there will be a new high speek technology that everybody wants.

[Marsden11]

What do you think the Internet runs over? FIBER There is probably more "dark" fiber (unused) than actual fiber in use...

[jbredmound]

What about distance limitations? That could cause a few problems too right?The main thing i don't like about this is by the time the project is completed DSL will probably be yesterday's news and there will be a new high speek technology that everybody wants.

The closest Hamlet to my home is 13 miles away, in a different state. The HQ of my ISP is about 27 miles away and about 21 miles as the crow flies. I have DSL. Now, if this podunk (seemingly so) telephone company can provide me with a connection that is faster than most Earthlink DSL, why would distance be a problem? I'll venture a guess...they are a heck of a lot smarter in podunk than the children they hire at the big ISP's.Broadband limitations are largely limitations of intellect, not technology.You know what? I am willing to wager a token amount with you right now that when DSL, etc, becomes obsolete, my little ISP and others like it will be announcing the demise, not responding to it. Don't let the mediocrity of the publicly owned companies limit your own horizons. As the Lynard Skynard band once said..."there's alot goin on that you don't know".

[snoepie]

HUNDT-ING BROADBAND: A former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is pitching a plan to wire American homes with true broadband data connections, and he wants taxpayers to subsidize the project directly, while ditching another federal mandate that amounts to a hidden tax.

Almost all the current broadband-efforts are aimed at one target: to use the old copperwired telephone-lines, so they can still make a profit out of this obsolete technology. Why are the copper wires obsolete? Don't YOU use your cellphone more often than your regular phone? New fiber-optic data pipes? Within a couple of years these also will be obsolete. This century requires a wireless solution (look around you, smell the spirit of the new age!)

[Peachy]

Although I live in Peterborough, the county in which the city resides is rural with about 40% of the county's population outside the city. So the vast majority of the community is left with only dial-up access to the internet. I just read yesterday in one of our weekly community newspapers that our community economic corporation just received a $30,000 Cdn. grant from the federal government to create a business plan that would outline how our county would bring broadband to the rural areas. Interesting. I'm not sure what to make of it, whether this is the best way to do it or not. But it's a start. This has been discussed in our area for the past 4 years.Speaking of "dark fibre", there's quite a lot of it in our neck of the woods. Our city has it ringed around its perimeter. My employer, a community college, has paid for fibre to be laid and connected from Peterborough to all our satellite campuses. There are 4 links in place. One of them was supposed to be turned on last October, but I'm not sure if it has yet. I think the stumbling block is money. Who's gonna pay for the traffic?

[jbredmound]

Although I live in Peterborough, the county in which the city resides is rural with about 40% of the county's population outside the city. So the vast majority of the community is left with only dial-up access to the internet. I just read yesterday in one of our weekly community newspapers that our community economic corporation just received a $30,000 Cdn. grant from the federal government to create a business plan that would outline how our county would bring broadband to the rural areas. Interesting. I'm not sure what to make of it, whether this is the best way to do it or not. But it's a start. This has been discussed in our area for the past 4 years.Speaking of "dark fibre", there's quite a lot of it in our neck of the woods. Our city has it ringed around its perimeter. My employer, a community college, has paid for fibre to be laid and connected from Peterborough to all our satellite campuses. There are 4 links in place. One of them was supposed to be turned on last October, but I'm not sure if it has yet. I think the stumbling block is money. Who's gonna pay for the traffic?

Have them make contact with The Vernon Telephone Cooperative in Westby, WI. When they decided to "re-wire" with fiber optic, their wheels started turning. (I know, Snoepie, it's outdated, but I think a good start).Half the technology in this system is European, because the Americans told them I couldn't be done. I remember well last Christmas that two techs from the coop were in Germany, instead of home with their families, because they were "working a problem".Currently, I have DSL (I don't want to belabor the mileages) and crystal-clear phone service.The technology to bring cable to my home has been finalized, but "hardening" it to our winters has not been completed. The co-op still hopes for a fall roll-out, but most of us think next spring to summer (it's a rural area, and many folks know the techs).Tell them that they don't need to reinvent the wheel, just put in the infrastructure that they will need, anyway.Last thought for that Amsterdam Gal; I truthfully don't know what your winters are like, but in my neck of the woods, the weather can get bad enough to halve the performance of cell phones. I have even had my Dish Network service degraded to the point that it was not worth watching! I'm big on the future of wireless, but around here, I want my infrastructure buried in the ground.

[Guest ThunderRiver]

That's a great idea, but it should not take that long to deploy. We already have the underlying network, the powerlines.. Once someone figure out a way for mass data transmission on powerlines, we all can get online through wall outlet. Now the price of 20 dollars is sweet.

[Cluttermagnet]

HUNDT-ING BROADBAND: A former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is pitching a plan to wire American homes with true broadband data connections, and he wants taxpayers to subsidize the project directly, while ditching another federal mandate that amounts to a hidden tax.

Almost all the current broadband-efforts are aimed at one target: to use the old copperwired telephone-lines, so they can still make a profit out of this obsolete technology. Why are the copper wires obsolete? Don't YOU use your cellphone more often than your regular phone? New fiber-optic data pipes? Within a couple of years these also will be obsolete. This century requires a wireless solution (look around you, smell the spirit of the new age!)

Don't YOU use your cellphone more often than your regular phone?

Hi, Snoepie-I do not even own a cell phone. I never have. Perhaps I never will. Every technology achieves only a certain "market penetration", and no more. I am definitely _not_ in their business plan. I would have tried cellular if it had been marketed as an improved, price competitive service alternative to wirelines. They saw themselves as a value-added service worthy of a premium price (after all, I can't use my wireline while driving in my car). So too for cable TV. Both left me cold. At least I tried cable TV before rejecting it. My conclusion- they thought they could add in more whiz-bang new features and then jack up the price 5 to 10 times. They persuaded a lot of people to come over, but not me. Not so long ago, over the air television was adequate, free, and plentiful in many metro areas, probably for a majority of the population. Today most folks pay around USD 60.00 and more- usually much more- for cable TV, despite the fact that they sometimes still have dozens of local over the air broadcasts available. It is well known that cable TV was allowed to get a foothold through the bad offices of local politicians of questionable ethics, and there followed an obscene installation of cable TV monopolies virtually everywhere. That is fine if you like that cable sort of experience. I quickly burned out on it. I think it is mostly crap. My local cable company has been pursuing me for 10-15 years trying to get me to subscribe. That is not going to happen.Recently the cable guys also started marketing broadband digital ISP services. For USD 60.00, I can get broadband internet (50.00 if I am also buying cable TV). No way. I can live without fast downloads. The only way they would ever get my business would be to offer a service price competitive with dialup ISP + wireline total monthly cost. That's right, I expect _more_ for the _same amount of money_! That is what it would take to make me switch. I pay my dialup ISP 18.00/ month today, plus about 17.00/ month for wireline phone service. After I dump my present ISP at the end of the year, my dialup cost drops to 8.25/ month because I have found a very good deal from a national ISP. I got it for my sister and the service worked out great for her. So that's only about 25.00/ month for dialup vs. 60.00 for broadband. It's a standoff. Give me broadband for, say, 30.00 or less and I will make the switch- and I still will not buy cable TV at any price because it is garbage. Not only am I not in those guys' business plan, I am not even in the same universe as they are. They have it in mind to soon have the price for bundled services up around 150-200. That approaches the monthly lease payment on a low-end car today. Who do they think they are kidding? Oh, I get it- they have everybody addicted. Even today I know of folks who are paying around 110-120. for 'enhanced' cable TV + broadband ISP. I have been on this computer long enough today. I am going to go outside and take a nice walk, pick the local raspberries which are now in season, and enjoy the fresh air. No pressure on me to download lots of big files to get my moneys worth on broadband or to watch the latest horrific, over the top, violent movie because that is what's on and I'm paying for it. Wireless does not interest me in the least. I have never owned a laptop and have little interest in ever having one. The entire idea of Palm Pilots leaves me cold. If I ever become interested in having a local network of computers in my house, I would prefer to use antiquated copper wire (coax) instead of wireless. I can make it more secure that way. How many of you folks have broadband + wireless? How do you check to see if anybody is abusing your network? Or do you bother to check at all? War driving has become pretty popular.I guess I want to be able to compartmentize my life. I don't want the ball and chain that a cell phone represents, let alone 'enhanced' cellular + internet. People can track you down anywhere, any time, and annoy you with all sorts of unwanted interruptions. They also annoy everyone around the person who takes that cell call. Such rudeness! I do not want to be a part of their phone conversation, but then they don't really give me much choice, do they? Right- like I'm going to make a big, ugly scene in public, just to inform the cell call person how much they are annoying me? Not likely, mate! But I hate it, and so do a lot of other folks. Resistance is growing. In the era of 'pagers', I would never have taken any job where I had to carry one as a job requirement. I find that I can survive quite well for major periods of time completely untethered from the 'electronic umbilical cord'. The world is changing so fast, and I see so many people completely swept away on 'the wave', unconscious of what their own wants or needs really are. There are a few advantages to being a 'slow adoptor'. Getting back to the argument that you are making, my position is that they would literally have to rip out all of the old 'physical plant' (wireline phone service, over the air radio and television broadcasting, in-person banking at the bank, etc.) before I would be forced to make these unneeded and unwanted changes. I would first have to be deprived of any real choice (I'm quite sure they are working on doing precisely that!). By then the price increase and overall curtailment of liberty and privacy would be extortionately high. Real wealth and real income have not increased over recent decades, not much, anyway, except for the very rich. But the high prices charged for the latest technology are being pushed up shamelessly. This will be a century of outrageous monopolies and an unrelenting squeezing of the 'consumer class' as they work at shaking loose every last dollar of disposable income. To date, the worst inconveniences I have endured is the lengthy download time for internet browser software, and the fact that it is getting a little harder to find a pay phone when I need one since everybody has gone to cellular. But then I'm no longer downloading the bloatware spewed forth by Microsoft and Netscape any more- I use Mozilla/ Firebird now, and if I want to buy a nice Linux distro on CD, the price is quite fair and reasonable, as I see it. I'm going to play the hand I have right now, and just see where it takes me.

This century requires a wireless solution (look around you, smell the spirit of the new age!)

Well, maybe, but I do not think that has yet been proven. In fact, it appears to me that a combination of technologies will need to be deployed, depending on each area's history, politics, and installed physical plant. I think it is far too soon to be tearing out all the wirelines. There are some competing technologies that would like to use those conductors at impressively fast data rates. Choice is good. Let us see where some competition can take us. 'Forcing solutions', as the former FCC chairman would like to do, is rarely a good thing. I'm sure he stands to profit handsomely from what he proposes. I'm sorry, but politicians and government bureaucrats have long since lost my trust and, in many cases, my respect as well. It has been my observation that such folks, along with industry, are generally only in it for themselves and are usually working _contrary_ to my interests. This is why in the well known joke, one of the World's Three Biggest Lies is "I'm from your government and I'm here to help you." I have seen some questionable major decisions come out of the FCC this past decade, and I have absolutely no reason to trust this guy. The situation has only been getting rapidly worse. One of the biggest, highest stakes fights early in this new century will be carving up telecom and communications overall and selling them off to the highest bidders. The emergence of new monopolies is very likely and none of this will much favor the consumer. But it will be skillfully image-managed in the media so as to appear that this is all a wonderful boon for consumers.

[Cluttermagnet]

That's a great idea, but it should not take that long to deploy. We already have the underlying network, the powerlines.. Once someone figure out a way for mass data transmission on powerlines, we all can get online through wall outlet. Now the price of 20 dollars is sweet.

Yes, and what a lousy network it would make! And what a vast number of present-day users of the HF radio spectrum would be driven off permanently by what amounts to local radio jamming transmitters. This is one infant that I hope gets strangled to death in its crib! The Japanese people have already debated this issue and wisely decided there will be none of this attrocious datacom mode allowed in Japan.Dear ThunderRiver, my friend- will you please take the time to become familiar with the severe issues PLC would bring down on so many of us before you form your opinion? Or is your mind already and irreversibly made up? There are two excellent articles about it here: Part 1 and Part 2 . If you come to understand what a terrible thing this mode would be, and how many millions who use the airwaves for long distance, point to point, weak signal communications would be evicted en masse, I think you might change your mind and become more supportive of fiber-to-premises and cable and other better broadband modes- even DSL and similar. These modes leak little or no RF (radio) energy. Fiber and cable pose no threat to radio communicators, with the possible exception of some touchy technical issues at the home when fiber-to-premises becomes a reality- and careful design can help us dodge that bullet. DSL and similar modes do put out some minor RF interference, but it is manageable for the most part. In contrast, PLC is a howlingly loud broadband RF noise source that would render the entire shortwave spectrum unusable for point to point communications, and would at times even propagate via ionospheric 'skip' to cause interference in distant cities. Think how outraged you might feel if you happened to enjoy sailing, for example, and then me and a bunch of my evil friends got together and cooked the laws so much that it became prohibitively expensive for you to put out to sea again? Maybe we would just tie all you sailboat guys up in so much red tape and prohibitively expensive licenses and greatly increased requirements for many more types of documents and paperwork and safety gear and super-expensive insurance which you needed to have. Your boats could be boarded, searched, and confiscated if anything were not in order. How would that feel? Me and all my very rich friends would have a lot more open ocean to ourselves once we got rid of most of the 'riffraff'. Our insurance cost would drop because there would be much less risk that our 30 meter yacht might accidentally run you down in the night and cut your sailboat in two. You don't like that? Too bad for you. We have some very different ideas about who should share access to the world's oceans, and you folks are not even a part of our plans, of our thinking, so just get lost! Are you starting to see my point? The only difference between this fictional situation vs. the very real threat posed by PLC is that the grab is for a big chunk of radio spectrum instead of the oceans. Both are finite resources and are precious and irreplaceable.

[snoepie]

Last thought for that Amsterdam Gal; I truthfully don't know what your winters are like, but in my neck of the woods, the weather can get bad enough to halve the performance of cell phones. I have even had my Dish Network service degraded to the point that it was not worth watching! I'm big on the future of wireless, but around here, I want my infrastructure buried in the ground.

RedmoundGuy, I presume you are referring to me calling me Amsterdam Gal. Let me tel you I've been in Amsterdam only twice in my life; since I go to Paris, France at least three times a year you better call me Paris Gal!Now for the serious part of your comment: the Netherlands enjoy a sea-climate whitch means: mild summers and mild winters, so our cellphones allways do the job. As a solution for your "winter problems" using a cellphone and dish service I quote your own words:

(...) limitations are largely limitations of intellect, not technology

Double the number of wireless accesspoints and you're out of trouble!

[jbredmound]

Last thought for that Amsterdam Gal; I truthfully don't know what your winters are like, but in my neck of the woods, the weather can get bad enough to halve the performance of cell phones. I have even had my Dish Network service degraded to the point that it was not worth watching! I'm big on the future of wireless, but around here, I want my infrastructure buried in the ground.

RedmoundGuy, I presume you are referring to me calling me Amsterdam Gal. Let me tel you I've been in Amsterdam only twice in my life; since I go to Paris, France at least three times a year you better call me Paris Gal!Now for the serious part of your comment: the Netherlands enjoy a sea-climate whitch means: mild summers and mild winters, so our cellphones allways do the job. As a solution for your "winter problems" using a cellphone and dish service I quote your own words:

(...) limitations are largely limitations of intellect, not technology

Double the number of wireless accesspoints and you're out of trouble!

Excellent point! But what about my satellite dish that flakes out when it snows? OK, that's their problem, not mine, and they need to solve it.

[snoepie]

Cluttermagnet, you've given me great information on the (for me) overseas telephone/cable/isp-market and their pricing policies. I realise now Dutch companies have different goals and a different price-policy (what a great medium the internet is: learning from each others experiences).Using a relular phone we have two major companies that charge around 18euro for monthly subscription. Using the regular phone cost for a local call about 1eurocent a minute, long distance (within the tiny Netherlands) cost about 17eurocents a minute.Using cellphone we have five major companies competing each other to death. In most cases subscription is free of charge and local as well as long distance calls cost about 12eurocents a minute.This situation is mostly also valid for Belgium and Germany.Most of the people I know want to get rid of their regular phone (18euro monthly subscriptionfee, getting nothing in return, is 150 minutes cell phone!).And now for the market-policy: one only can get ADSL, having a regular phone subscription! (ADSL cost around 50euro a month extra)The alternative: cable-broadband is only sold to those people who also buy cable television! (cable-bb around 50euro a month and cable-tv around 20euro a month, for only max 25 channels).The second alternative: non-broadband using a modem: you must have a regular phone subscription and unlimited up/download (at low speed) cost around 1 eurocent a minute.Now for me personally: I don't want cable-tv. I live close to the borders of Germany, Belgium and France, so I can receive all their TV-stations by air. Cable for me is out of the question. I use ADSL which in fact is 18euro overbilled because I never use my regular phone!I am very interested in wireless, I do use a laptop (Toshiba satelite) which serves me well in my livingroom (no big cabinet needed, no noise). I do use a GPS-system in my car (handy because I always lose my way in foreign cities) and I do use SMS (to) much with my friends.Not in the least I'm worried by security issues. I have disk-images of everything so nothing to be destroyed on this side. The only time I persist in using a wired connection is when I'm ordering something on the internet or when I start my e-banking programm.The moments I do not want to be in reach for my friends (visiting a party, having to studie hard or reading the Blumrich book -halfway now and super!-) I switch off all devices; important calls go to my voicemail-box, so I can catch up later.I don't know what's your age Cluttermagnet, but comparing my thoughts about wireless to the thoughts of my dad (born 1954) I see a huge difference. All the way his life he was an early adaptor concerning electronics, but nowdays I sence some doubt about wireless. I think it has something to do with being content with his current life-style and not wanting to tumble into something new with an unpredictable outcome. That's what you're also telling me, I suppose

[Cluttermagnet]

Cluttermagnet, you've given me great information on the (for me) overseas telephone/cable/isp-market and their pricing policies. I realise now  Dutch companies have different goals and a different price-policy (what a great medium the internet is: learning from each others experiences).

Hi, snoepie-As always you write a good, well-reasoned reply! Thanks for the info about your very different 'telecom' situation in Holland. The 18 euros you are forced to pay for your nearly obsolete wireline is indeed a waste and an injustice. It sounds like things must be about the same everywhere- government gets involved and then the inevitable distortions of the market become even more exagerated. There is certainly a lot of politics here in the US around many such issues. The debate has become so surreal that many times we see advertisements on TV which look like they are representing 'grassroots' organizations (regular people- consumers) when actually they are cleverly written and aired at great expense by the giant corporations who stand to make huge profits if only they can influence the US congress and the courts to make things go their way. Often we learn that a competing series of TV ads that oppose each other are actually the work of two different corporations locked in mortal combat for the big money payoff. It is _so_ dishonest, and the practice is very widespread now. I have heard this called 'institutionalized dishonesty', and I would agree that the practice is indeed dishonest. Unfortunately, people have become used to it all and few ever complain about these unethical practices. Taken to extremes, we see this corporate mindset sometimes lead to blatantly dishonest ripoffs such as the Enron fiasco.Yes, I am closer in age to your dad, snoepie. It does not surprise me that you two should differ very much in your views. That is a good thing! Generally (not always), change is good. We only need to look back in history to appreciate how much things have improved for most of us. It is important to understand that all great societies and cultures are like living creatures- at some point, their growth stops and decay gradually sets in. Like all humans, societies grow old and eventually die, to be replaced by something different. What survives these human institutions for a time is the collective wisdom they accumulate through experience, by trial and error and eventual success. Even these intellectual artifacts eventually get destroyed, once they have become counterproductive or irrelevant. We can see a lot of discontinuities if we look far enough back along the timelines of various societies. There seem to be plenty of things that can cause this, including major natural disasters (large meteor strikes, periods of extreme volcanism, etc.), mass migrations, and wars of conquest. The winners get to write their own biased history and the losers generally get buried along with the cultural (intellectual) artifacts of their societies. If people did not grow old and eventually die, the world might not ever change much. To me, that seems like it would be a bad thing, especially since nearly the entire drama of human life is about encountering and overcoming problems, and that definitely involves accepting change. Take away the drama and life loses much of its meaning and urgency. Yes, I agree that as people grow older, they tend to become more set in their ways. I'm sure that you are indeed seeing this behavior in your dad and in me to some degree. Don't underestimate the ability of these folks to still make changes, however, when important enough circumstances make it necessary or even attractive. These are interesting times we live in, and the increasingly greater rate of change powerfully affects all of us. When it comes to 'telecom' -type issues, almost everyone is profoundly affected and has a stake in the outcome of those changes, with the exception of people who are so rigid that they have not, for example, embraced the personal computer revolution and allowed it to come into their lives.Not all changes are good, although they often happen anyway as a result of 'historical forces'. We always live in environments of forced change. It seems to be a part of life and simply the way the world has always worked. All we can expect is for there to be periods of relative stability punctuated by other times where near-chaos reigns. I have no problem with people embracing wireless as part of their overall lifestyle and their experience of the fast changing internet. What a lot of folks have a problem with is that people are so easily manipulated into embracing changes that pile on greatly increased and unnecessary expense in return for a little novelty, a bit of change. Getting back to my idea about "collective wisdom", does it not seem reasonable that people with more experience might better see through schemes which effect changes that do not lead to the betterment of our situation? There are many schemes that involve securing monopolies through an unholy alliance between corrupt government and business people and then using them to crush all competition, no matter how worthy, and to use this power to extort much greater fees out of the consumers.What would concern me is not so much the emergence and growth of wireless but rather the real possibility that this or other emerging technologies might cause perfectly functional and adequate technologies such as wireline telcom to become extinct. Extinct in the sense of both "no longer available" _and_ physical destruction of the lower-priced medium- wirelines literally torn out from the home interface all the way back to the central office switchgear. This is probably inevitable anyway, but as I see it, if those guys succeed in tearing out infrastructure prematurely, they get to have monopolies and to extort unconscionable amounts of money out of the consumer. Change is good, but so is choice! It is choice that is always in the gunsights of big business. More choice for the consumer means less profits for them. I'm not at all opposed to wireless. In fact, I think it is a really cool thing and it can be useful to a lot of people. It is just that I don't feel like I want it personally. The increased functionality is wonderful, it looks exciting, but it does not materially improve the quality of of my own internet experience. For everything I am doing, dialup is quite adequate. This is all academic anyway, as we can project that the time is fast approaching when we will indeed see the extinction of wireline telecom in most developed countries. You can do so much more over fiber or coax in addition to the simple task of providing traditional wireline duplex voice communications- 'telephone service'. The local "Bells", local telephone companies, have a powerful disincentive now so far as adding in any more wirelines to accomodate growth in usage. This means that their 'physical plant' is deteriorating. There are many so-called 'voice grade' lines that are so poor they will not even support a 28.8K dialup rate, and the problem only gets worse over time. I have seen much 'fun and games' in my neighborhood as complaining customers plus the phone company and sometimes their contractors play a game called "Who can we stick with this really bad line and get away with it? (Answer: figure out who does not have any computer modems, faxes, etc. in their house- they will never know the difference). There is another name for this game with line swapping- it can be called "musical chairs". I would be very happy to see wireline service linger on for a good while longer. Perhaps DSL and other such encoding schemes will keep the old copper links going for some time. My resistance to change in this area would _cease immediately_ if only the companies made the transition easier and more reasonable. But that is far from what they are about. They will likely never offer 'equivalent service' at comparable prices, or if they do, that rate class would not survive for long. I do hear rumors about some cable companies toying with the idea of offering an 'economy' class ISP service with diminished performance (up/download speed and possibly limited access hours). This would allow them to capture additional market share but probably would be self-defeating for them in the long run, so look for such service to be discontinued and upgraded service forced on economy customers once they have them hooked. Their MO is to acquire monopolies and then extort the maximum tribute from each consumer for the privilege of using their medium. That makes good _business_ sense, yet is at the same time unethical and immoral. Greedy cable TV monopolies are a prime example of this business strategy, and have arroused such anger among consumers that there have been congressional hearings and legislation about them. The trouble is that most members of those bodies are 'bought and paid for'. They owe big business big time! Every time the matter is addressed through legislation, the situation only gets worse for the consumers, who have little real voice in these matters. Oh, there are some exceptions to the rule, but not many.