High Speed Internet - when will it arrive?

[dvduval]

I continue to wonder if big business is blocking high speed internet. You figure as soon as 50-100 MB upload/download speeds are available, the following will be possible:
1. Movies on demand that can be downloaded in just a few seconds (whether the source is legal or not).
2. Everyone can open up their wifi and create a network that allows your cellphone to connect to a network and call anyone for free, no contract needed anymore.

What do you think?

[Chris]

I think more money should be spent in rural areas. You have multiple overlapping options in cities, but in the country you are often stuck with dialup.

In the end the problem is still one of bandwidth. On one piece of cable you need to have tv, digitaltv, hdtv, and high speed internet. They only have so much bandwidth. Fiber can bring in more bandwidth, but is only limitedly available. Then of course DSL/wifi do not yet offer such bandwidth and dsl probably never will.

[Doug]

I think more money should be spent in rural areas

I can defniately agree to that. For the past two years I have been trying to get dsl where I live and they still do not offer it. Every time I call I hear the same "it will be a couple months" excuse. The only options I have are dialup or that extremely expensive satellite internet. Oh yea, and when I connect with the dialup I connect at 21.6kbs, so it isnt even good dialup.

[Selkirk]

Even very small towns have a DSL/Cable choice. However, very rural areas are probably only ever going to be served by wireless or satellite.

The thing to watch for rural internet are the 700MHz auctions.

Wifi is widespread, but is limited over long distances, penetrating walls, weather, etc as well as restrictions on broadcast power, plus since the specrum WiFi uses is unregulated regarding use, you get interference with other things like cordless phones. In a way, its that lack of regulation that made WiFi widespread and standard.

The 700Mhz spectrum is a better set of frequencies for wireless data, as I understand it.

The problems in this domain aren't as much technical as having to do with regulation and the protection of existing business models.

I find myself watching more and more stuff on my computer rather than my TV. The other day, I saw an ad for "the princess bride" on iTunes. I went to YouTube and watched the first half of the movie. Yeah, I could have bought the movie on iTunes. Total copyright violation. I only wanted to watch a couple of the highlight scenes, not the whole move. The next day, after I talked about the movie, my brother stopped at Best Buy and bought the DVD. A week later, a friend of mine did as well. The publishers don't seem to grasp that making their content more readily available increases sales.

Take NBC withdrawing from iTunes for example. The 2nd ep of Heroes got deleted from my DVR before I could watch it. So, I had to watch it from NBC's site, with their lame commercials and lousy player. Now, I'm willing to do that for a top show like Heroes, but for their lesser shows, forget it.

So I watch nearly 100% of my TV from a DVR with zapped commercials and downloaded episodes from iTunes, or stupid stuff on youtube. How is NBC going to reach me and convince me to watch their shows?

Anyway, improvements in the technology of video on demand will come about as a natural result of changing the business model of how video content is purchased and where people spend their time.