"mike" wrote in message
...

It's appeal is mostly for high graphics content websites (porn) and
newsgroup binaries (porn, Software, MP3's) which BTW have all largely
fueled the growth of the Internet.

This is not to say broadband is its own right is a bad thing. In some
areas such as Vermont, local calls are expensive. Here broadband
widely apeals because it costs the same as dialup when you add in
local call charges to link to the ISP.

mike


Yeah, right now, it seems broadband doesn't become really attractive until
it gets price competitive with dial-up.


The "Broadband Nirvana" comment reminded me of a silly article I read which
claimed the high tech recession was due to old fashioned regulation holding
back broadband access. Maybe regulation was holding back the manufacturers
and suppliers in the broadband industry, but, as I remember, he also implied
that the US economy really needed broadband somehow. He wasn't specific as
to how. It just did.

The FCC commissioners are taking that tone, as well. Broadband must be ten
times better than dial-up because -- well, just because. And the
commissioners won't be caught roadblocking the future.

But right now, for lots of people, the internet works just fine with
dial-up. They won't contribute ten times as much to the economy with
broadband. They won't be ten times as entertained. The connection sits
idle most of the time, anyway. Broadband won't be a necessity until there's
something better than the usual e-mail, chat rooms and lite internet surfing
people do.

In a way, it looks similiar to the way most of the new UHF TV and FM radio
stations struggled in the early 50s. There was a huge increase in
bandwidth, but there was little extra to fill it with. People got what they
wanted from their AM radios and VHF TVs. It took about 25 years before the
extra bandwidth was filled.

I was at the library and found a book called "SST here it comes - ready or
not!" So I checked it out. Figured it would be good for a laugh, at least.
Actually it was a pretty good book. The author was an avation writer who
gave a good accounting of the SST debate of 1969 or so. Of course, we
abandoned the American SST program, and it didn't matter much. Few
travellers wanted to pay the extra price to go faster.

Frank Dresser