NNNNNNnnooooo...uh-uh, never, no way, what in the world?!
By the by, I might add that I'm one that has no access to traditional broadband, as I live out in the middle of nowhere.
Either way, the problem stems to the Ma Bell monopoly 'way back when'...basically there was competing telephone companies, and Ma Bell was losing profits...the solution? Form a cartel; they petitioned the government that telephone service was a "natural monopoly" and best provided by only 1 company...and Congress fell for it.
Then you had the FCC, which shouldn't have existed to begin with (some have pointed out that if the whole matter of spectrum was handled by the courts and only the courts, it would likely have been a nasty, messy 3-6 years, but the end result would have been FAR more competition, less government waste, and more privatization). This continues to this day; the FCC will sometimes block a new cable or telephone company from entering a new region that is already served by either.....to complicate matters are the State and local governments, who will often do the same thing (you can't really fix this, but you could abolish the FCC and de-regulate the crap out of the telecommunications industry).
the problem, once again, is that the government dropped the ball...TWICE...once with Ma Bell and once with the FCC, and the impacts of both can be felt to this very day.
Also you have to factor in supply and demand....a telephone company can't justify spending a couple million on some new equipment (and that's if the lines are capable and in good condition) to serve only 1-5 people in an area that has 50 people.
Let's not forget that the government greatly hindered the speed of the Internet in its earliest days...they would not allow, under any condition, for end users to attach an electrical modem directly to the telephone lines, therefore everyone had to use ultra-slow acoustic modems (you had to set the telephone receiver on a speaker and receiver, and data was sent via analogue noise)...therefore, in their infinite wisdom, the government managed to keep speeds suppressed and the world of the Internet slow.
Also, there's 'what the market wants' too.....when ISDN came out (in the '70s) it was touted as the next best thing (keep in mind that this was Ma Bell, so even though she was a coercive monopoly, she was trying to help, to some degree)...it was 100% digital, and offered much greater voice clarity...not only that, but it was a full 64 kilobits per second (and that was insanely fast during that era....WAN links were often no more than 56 kilobits per second)....and when bonded together, you had the potential for 128 kilobits per second....also, the latency is really low, on par with that of DSL (around 70-80 ms).
The public, sadly, did not bite; they wanted to stick with what they knew and understood.
Looking back on it, as someone else said, "Ma Bell should have just crammed ISDN down their customer's throats anyways"....I agree...if they would have, everyone would at least have 128 kilobit lines (and they'd be well suited for gaming and VOIP as well, with their low latency), and there would be a VAST infrastructure in place when moving to DSL....but like I said, the customer's didn't bite, and well...Ma Bell was probably more than happy not to improve the situation, since it was a government-sponsored monopoly anyway.
once again, the Free Market is the answer....to rely on government to improve the situation (and it'd have to be with socialistic policies, mind you) is only a band-aid on a much, MUCH larger problem.
this is where libertarians go wrong. They campaign on "let's privatize government," or "let's privatize roads." That's why they never go anywhere. But yes, I do agree, government is a monopoly in itself. But we have to deal with it. Do you see liberals talk about nationalizing the oil? Nationalizing the banks? Nationalizing farms? No, because they know they can't elected with positions like that. You have to pander to the voters. Now that gas prices are going up, we see them talking about NATIONALIZING IT, you see? They're really communists.
