Holland takes a shot at Gigabit access while the US gets capped

While Comcast has decided to refuse service to you if you use too much, Holland’s access providers move ahead with offering more for less in Gigabit access. How can they do that? It’s simple. Holland’s access providers have already invested in fiber to the home. Adding capacity with fiber is a plug and play upgrade.

In Amsterdam, where they already have a fiber optic network, they’re now thinking about upgrading it to symmetrical speeds of up to 1 GB. On Sept. 10th, fiber optic network owners GlasvezelNet Amsterdam, BBned and InterNLnet will show off such speeds on a live fiber optic network in the Osdorp region. Nearly 40,000 households are connected to this network. Speeds like this are more than enough to offer, say, four parallel HD streams on one connection, something the three companies plan to show off as well.

Such speeds are going to become a reality in places around the planet soon enough, especially in places where fiber broadband is being deployed. Here in the U.S., meanwhile, market leaders such as AT&T and Comcast are proposing the implementation of caps, a move that will only serve to cause problems for innovators.(GigaOm)

If you aren’t angry about this, you should be. Our fine American access duopoly has had a free ride at your expense investing in almost everything except upgrading the last mile connection to you (with the exception of limited FIOS build by Verizon). We’ve all been had by a propaganda machine that is trying to convince us that bandwidth is a limited commodity when the opposite is true. When you vote this November, remember that any support for Network Neutraility is misinformed. Net Neutrality is a cop out that assumes that bandwidth is by its nature scarce and must be rationed. We must open the  market to competition and / or require the duopoly to divest of any business that does not provide access.