The Change Mariner

The Race to Wire America with Broadband

NYT:
... The competition in the Salt Lake City area mirrors that in towns and cities from Portland, Ore., to Portland, Me. It pits behemoth cable companies against telephone companies, and both against a growing number of small entrepreneurs who want to use wireless technology to bypass the telecommunications infrastructure. All of the contenders are struggling to reach people like Mrs. Washburn, knowing that whoever arrives first has an advantage.

About 14 percent of American households have broadband, amounting to a third of those with Internet access. They pay $30 to $60 a month for the service. Growth prospects for the market are strong, according to Patrick Mahoney, an analyst at the Yankee Group, a market research firm. Revenue from high-speed Internet service is expected to increase to $20.8 billion in 2007 from $7.4 billion in 2002, he said.

Technology industry analysts say high-speed computer links are being adopted more quickly than virtually any technology in American history. Still, other countries are ahead. The United State ranks 10th in the world in terms of the percentage of inhabitants with high-speed access behind Canada, South Korea and Japan.

... The cable industry has spent some $80 billion to upgrade its systems for high-speed access, including $10 billion this year, according to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, a trade group. Comparable figures on the phone companies are difficult to separate from overall industry investment, according to the Yankee Group. Mr. Mahoney said the telephone figure was probably less but that the industry required less of an upgrade to prepare it for high-speed traffic.