PC World’s Grant Goss has a perfect illustration of a working duopoly that could provide better service at better prices, but since is doesn’t have to………

On one side there’s my current provider, Comcast, which has a weird billing system that lets it shut off service without any real warning. On the other side is Verizon, which seems to be doing everything it can to avoid providing fiber-based Fios service to my house — even though it’s available in my neighborhood.

The story starts like this: About three months ago, I called Verizon to ask about its Fios broadband and television service.

This wasn’t an out-of-the-blue request. Verizon has been promising Fios in my area for a couple of years, and in April or so, I observed a Verizon technician stringing wires on our street. He assured me the wires were for Fios service.

In recent months, Verizon has been trumpeting Fios in mail sent to our address and in advertisements in two local weekly newspapers. With the ads promising we could save up to US$40 a month from our monthly cable, broadband and phone bills, I called Verizon.

I told the Verizon representative I wanted Fios. “It’s not available to your address,” she said.

I had an ace up my sleeve. “But you’re sending me mail offering it,” I said. “And … my next-door neighbor has it.”

Yes, in addition to having stood and watched the Verizon technician string the fiber cables across my street, I had also seen that my neighbors in the very next house have Fios.

The Verizon sales rep wasn’t buying it. “But sir, it says right here that Fios isn’t available to you,” she said. (PC World)

We’ve had a regulating body (the FCC) that has allowed the duopoly to thrive unchallenged. Before you blame FCC Chairman Martin exclusively, remember he’s simply carried on a long standing tradition of playing lap dog to the telcos. A parliament of whores called the US Congress has done little with it’s much touted oversight other than paying lip service in return for duopoly perks and donations. With a new administration poised to take over we’ve already seen a glimpse of a “new broadband policy” which is likely to hand over more of your tax dollars to a duopoly to get them to build what should have been built over a decade ago with the massive subsidies they have already received. If anything actually gets built this way, the customers are likely to receive substandard service at the world’s highest prices. At the risk of repeating myself: As long as there are few alternative options for the consumer, we will continue to get crummy service, and over pay. No federal subsidy or well intentioned oversight from people that have never held a real job in the competitive marketplace will fix this.

If you want cheap, abundant, and tastier hamburgers, you need a bunch of comboys competing head to head, not a gentlemen farmer or two overseen by their benefactors. Broadband is no different.

If you’re planning to buy a home now may be a good time as the market may be at its bottom. Before you sign a contract, consider this: The broadband in your new neighborhood will be just as important as good schools, shopping and other amenities. My advice is shop where there is fiber to the home if at all possible. Next best bet is in a municipality planning fiber to home. Forget promises for the duopoly about future availability. The Telcos and the cable guys promised we’d all have fiber in place eight years ago.  Fiber will maximize the value of the home in the future.

In less than a decade, broadband has gone from a luxury to a must for many people, and for some of them, it’s started to influence their real-estate decisions. Homes that have broadband are winning out over more remote ones that don’t. Areas with better and faster broadband are becoming more desirable than ones with slower access.

Edward Redpath, a real estate broker in Hanover, N.H., said he has seen deals fall through once the buyer realizes a home doesn’t get broadband. Across the Connecticut River in Norwich, Vt., only the center of the village has cable.

“We have a lot of people that don’t go into the rural neighborhoods or consider the rural neighborhoods because they need the broadband,” Redpath said. “Our lifestyle demands speed.” (StarTribune.com)