Our local paper, the Roanoke Times, has a series of articles on broadband today. There is a nice chart on the front page of the paper comparing various connection speeds, starting with dial up and progressing to some of the incumbent fiber connections. But the chart tops out at 30 megabit fiber service, which is still well below what residents in other countries are getting today, and is also well below what some U.S. communities are planning for roll out in the next six to twelve months: 100 megabit fiber service.
Those U.S. communities are also following European and Canadian communities by implementing open access, open services networks. The Roanoke Times articles correctly identify competition as a key requirement for communities, but it is hard to get that when the infrastructure is owned end to end by a single company.
The emerging model for community broadband is a digital road system, open to any business, not just one or two, as some older community systems have done. European open access, open service networks typically have dozens of service provider offering 75 to 100 kinds of services on the network--now that's competition. Once two or three of these new community digital road systems are in operation, the bar will be raised substantially, and 30 megabit fiber is going to look very limited.
Note to economic developers: If you are trying to attract companies to your region, would you rather market your transportation system as a closed toll road or an open highway?