What we have are multiple broadband strategies; this is a good thing

Over at Ars, the normally reasonable Nate misses the point on a national broadband strategy. He despairs over the fact that “we”, meaning the government, have no broadband strategy.

Actually, in the US, we have numerous broadband strategies. Verizon’s strategy is fiber to the home. AT&T’s strategy is fiber to the node. Comcast’s strategy is DOCSIS 3.0. Sprint’s strategy is WiMax.

Each of these strategies is backed by highly incentivized companies, risking their own capital — not taxpayer’s. Each strategy will have varying levels of success, with various market segments, at various times.

For example, Verizon has fiber available to over 6 million homes, and is adding availability at around 400,000 new homes per month at the end of last year. What government is doing that?

What we don’t have is a Congressionally-mandated, FCC-managed, taxpayer-funded broadband strategy, and for that we should be thankful.

Nate also feels the need to repeat the canard about advertised bandwidth around the world. Advertised? Jeez louise, I thought we were talking about broadband, not marketing copy.

I recommend that interested readers head over to speedtest.net to see actual measured throughput around the world. Here is a sample: