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Fibre 3 - it's a cost centre / discretionary expense
Thomas may have come late to the party, but he finally rung the bell that nobody else touched.
This says that we aren't all getting fibred up the wazoo because quite frankly the internet is just a discretionary expense, and while it is quite common for a household to "make a return" of having a telephone, a car, paying rent etc, that isn't the case for the intarweb.
Thomas goes on to say that he basically has enough bandwidth now for the Internet.
Thomas is right, this is the reason it isn't seen as a priority by anyone, and why calling the cable company to report loss of the internet is always going to be a low priority compared to reporting loss of the TV sports channels.
It really isn't that important, which is why it is quite easy to dismiss the whole idea due to the vast size of the USA and low population density.
We have just created the self perpetuating myth.
I will issue a challenge, and defy anyone to find anyone for whom "the internet" was actually just a cost centre.
I will issue a challenge like this because I've issued it before, and won it before, and always on the same terms, with the subject saying "well, you know, I've never really looked at it like that before."
E-mail alone ensures that home internet is exactly like business internet, and not a cost centre.
"Ah, but if I didn't have the internet I wouldn't be emailing so much!" yeah, and if you didn't have a car you wouldn't be driving everywhere, specious argument.
I am currently converting my mill and lathe to CNC control, and make no mistake, none of that would be possible at anywhere near the actual cost if it weren't for the internet connection at home, not just sourcing parts or info, or buying software and having it electronically delivered.
If the only way to find out about and buy Linux (insert distro flavour of choice here) was to buy a dead tree magazine that the distro paid for advertising space in, then send off a cheque, possibly internationally, then wait for the postman to deliver a CD, well folks, Linux would cost just about exactly the same as Windows.
Linux in particular and Open Source software in general is a child of the internet, before the internet (and I remember it well) the closest you could come was your local shareware library vendor, sneakernet on floppy.
No internet doesn't just mean no Linux as we know it, it means no alternative to the 200 dollar operating system and 200 dollar per suite of application software as we know it.
Bill Gates spectacularly under-estimated the impact of the internet in the Windows Chicago era, really, this was an error of judgement on a par with IBM granting MicroSoft that infamous licence.
Today, to say that phat pipes to the home as a Universal Service is not necessary is quite frankly an error of judgement on just as grand a scale.
Just look at us all posting and replying here, before the internet there was the BBS, and before that there was putting a stamp on an envelope and writing a letter to the editor, and then buying the paper again to see if your letter had been published.
To make the claim, as Thomas has, that the pipes we have are fat enough (even Zog on dial up) for "The Internet" is to get the picture hung upside down, this is a clear case of making an assumption that the pipes were built sufficient to carry the content out there, when what actually happened was the content always lead the pipe capacity, and all that has happened NOW is that generally speaking (500 kilobyte home pages aside) one specific form of content, namely http web page text publishing, is mature enough that most pipes, even Zog's, can carry it adequately.
To declare that this is a watershed, and "sufficient" is like declaring that the weekly Cunard sailing from Liverpool to the USA is enough and sufficient. Stop the world, I want to get off.
Back when I was paying a 5 pence connection charge and a penny a minute to connect at 9,600 baud to fido and we were talking about this new fangled internet thing over the horizon then yeah, Thomas was right, it was indeed a money pit, which is why only the self selected few were online, and boy I can remember the first time I met an actual woman who felt the same way, weird.
By the time xDLS always on connections came along however the net had ceased to become a money pit, at that point on balance the net saved you more money that it cost you to maintain a certain standard of living.
Every year since then as the inflation adjusted cost per X-abyte transferred has fallen that particular bit of mathematics has made the net an ever better bargain investment, speaking personally the net has both earned and saved me more money than everything else combined.
But Thomas is right, in that he is indeed stating a common perception of the truth, that the net is an expense, and not a vital one at that, and it is from that common conception that we can form opinions such as the one that states that due to the vast size of the USA it is simply unrealistic to expect everyone to get fibred up.
When I state quite plainly that this is the exact same size country that has utility electric running everywhere and metalled roads running everywhere it gets dismissed, because everyone thinks the net is just an expense, not an essential part of civilisation like roads or power.
No Thomas, I do not pretend to know what you would do with a gigabit up/down for 50 bucks a month, and more than a buggy whip maker would have known what use an interstate would be, or a candlemaker would have known what use a 3 phase supply would have been, or the pony express riders would know what use direct dialled telephones would be.
Saying we cannot afford to run gigabit to everyone is like saying we can't afford to run roads to everyone or electric to everyone IF YOU LOOK AT THEM FROM THE SAME ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE, it would be utterly insane to build a nationwide electrical grid if there were no domestic electrical goods or industrial electrical equipment available for purchase, and utterly insane to build a nationwide road grid if there were no vehicles.
SURE, we can let the markets work it out, growth and sales moving hand in hand, slowly, slowly, slowly.
OR, you can adopt a "build it and they will come" mentality, also known as an industrial revolution, so the only question really is, "where do you want your kids to grow up?" Some third world technological backwater where everything you can shake a stick at is expensive unobtanium, or a modern country where pretty much anything is available at reasonable cost?
BT offered to roll out nationwide fibre 20+ years ago.
STOP AND THINK!
In 1998 when technology companies were springing up all over the planet, think of an alternate world where you could, at great expense, connect computers at 9600 baud, or at serious expense a staggering 32 kilobit leased line, or you could go to this island nation in europe where they were rolling out fibre and man, the speeds were just insane, and getting insaner all the time as laser development progressed, you know? that file that you just took four days to transfer would take, like, 2 minutes or something insane like that.
Every financial institution on the planet would be there for a start, because not being there meant an active disadvantage compared to those who were there.
High tech industry, that's a given, Microsoft would just move, so would Cisco, IBM and Intel, sure, might leave the fabs in "third world technology" countries to save money..
The whole CNC industry, that's a given.
The entire mobile phone industry, that's a given.
Those asian "tiger" economies... yeah.
Thatcher's decision to stop BT from rolling out fibre in exchange for being able to shove telly down it too was by far the costliest economic mistake ever made in this country, and quite frankly it is not like it wasn't obviously a stupid mistake at the time too.
Now WE are sitting here with our thumbs up our asses nodding sagely that it is just too expensive and not needed anyway, meanwhile other nations have leapfrogged us and the inevitable results of that are incubating in their 100 megabit and up networks, and we thing the new hybrid hummer and KFC recipe and reality tv show is going to power us economically into the 2010's and 2020's.....
you want to know where that kind of "well the US is just too big to fibre up" thinking gets you?
nearly FORTY years ago you could put a 4x4 on the moon, now you're reduced to hitch-hiking lifts off the russkies, and hoping they don't think you smell to bad to catch a ride because you've been playing in georgia.