Check this out:
http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm
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By 2006, 86 million households should have been rewired with a fiber optic wire, capable of 45 Mbps, in both directions. -- read the promises.
The public subsidies for infrastructure were pocketed. The phone companies collected over $200 billion in higher phone rates and tax perks, about $2000 per household.
The World is Laughing at US. Korea and Japan have 100 Mbps services as standard, and America could have been Number One had the phone companies actually delivered. Instead, we are 16th in broadband and falling in technology dominance.
Harm to the economy. Five trillion dollars was lost because new technologies and services that America would have developed, happened in Korea.
Municipalities around America are waking up to the fact that the phone companies failed to deliver and are now doing Wifi and fiber-based work-arounds.-
Fake and co-opted consumer groups, biased non-profit think tanks are now the major force in broadband regulation and policy. The book goes into groups like Consumers for Cable Choice...
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America has become such a stupid country. It's just fuckin embarassing.