The professional complainers who assert there is little broadband competition, or that the U.S. is falling behind on broadband, will no doubt ignore the indisputable facts -- that Comcast just announced major speed upgrades for most of its users and a new set of superfast or wideband tiers for high-end users.
- Competition works!
- Just like cable modems competitively prompted telecom providers to roll out faster and cheaper DSL, Verizon's fast Fios service is prompting Comcast and others to roll out faster network speeds and offerings.
- Competition for broadband customers is alive and well!
- The reality is that competitive markets respond much better and faster to changes in demand, supply and innovation than regulators could ever hope to achieve with their red tape.
- I expect a muted response from net neutrality and national broadband policy proponents -- because the fact that competition is succeeding in increasing speeds and lowering effective prices -- just isn't part of their complaining narrative and their broadband sky is falling outlook.
- The Open Internet Coalition, Save the Internet and Free Press will somehow find bad news in this great news story for consumers -- or they will "ostrich" and ignore it happened so they can continue to complain uninterrupted by reality or the facts.
The Comcast DCOSIS 3.0 upgrade will "enable Comcast to double speeds for the majority of existing high-speed customers at no additional cost."
- Will net neutrality supporters acknowlege the fact that several million U.S. broadband users just effectively got a 50% price decrease for bandwidth speed? I doubt it.
Comcast will now offer an Extreme tier, of up to 50 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream for $139.95/month and an Ultra tier, of up to 22 Mbps downstream and 5 Mps upstream for $62.95/month.
Bottom line:
Competition not regulation best meets the diverse and changing needs and wants of today's customers.
Customers who want even more than doubled speed at no extra cost, can get even more by paying a little more.
- Those that are satisfied with the tier they are getting don't have to pay more or subsidize the 1% of users that are bandwidth hogs.
The reason that net neutrality supporters are so threatened by competition policy and the real world success of competition meeting the needs of consumers -- is that competition better serves consumers than their one-tier regulated vision of the Internet ever could.
Oh how net neutrality supporters hate the facts and benefits of competitive markets! They know they can't compete!
