SBC's Midwest Networking President, Kirk Brannock (currently serving on the Illinois Governor's Broadband Deployment Council) is getting his fifteen minutes of fame. He was captured on video at a public hearing stating that "fiber is an unproven technology."
It is an interesting assertion since SBC's networks would collapse without the tens of thousands of miles of fiber the company uses to run their entire phone and data system.
In the same video, Brannock arrogantly states that, "...what are you going to do with 20 megabits?" Um, the same things the Japanese, the Australians, the Chinese, the Candadians, and the Irish are doing with 100 megabit connections--just five times more slowly.
He keeps going though, and says that of their trial of 3 meg fiber in Milwaukee, "...most users won't use that."
The condescension of this guy is almost beyond belief. At one point, he talks about the "Dr. Suess" answer to upload/download speeds. So SBC believes their customers are small children that need simplistic answers to the economic future of their communities, and that SBC customers deserve nothing more than a pat on the head and a "We know better than you what your needs are" as a reply to legitimate questions about the company's service offerings.
The video clip (it's very short) is here, thanks to the Tri-City Broadband Citizens Group.