Comments on news posted 2005-07-21 15:06:36: The question of whether or not broadband qualifies as a utility, luxury, or even right - pops up every month or so, and our readership is pretty evenly split on the subject. ..
certainly NOT a luxury. luxury is a relative concept, and depends from person to person.
now, those people who are drawing comparisons between 56K and 10MBPS, are deludeded and hypocritical when they say, well 56k is a necessity, but the latter is a luxury.
if you go to 3rd world countries, then screw 56K, even proper electricity and running water are considered a luxury, because they have none of that right now.
so, who do we draw comparisons to? draw intelligent and relevant comparisons please, and in doing so, you will come to the unmistakable conclusion that 10 MBPS, or 10GBPS, it will never be a luxury, but will always remain a necessity for the people concerned, the very people who are buying or thinking of buying it in the first place.
For anyone dealing with educating children, the concept of having haves and have nots is heartless.
I argued here in the covad vs monopolies days, and still argue that because of the access to materials providing palpably better education, the state needs to intervene as it did in the rural electrification and telco acts to demand that companies owning basic infrastructures create facilities for the indigent.
It's all three, 1) It's a "Utility" (Cable Company), 2) It's "Right" if it were not availible to all it would be discrimination, 3) It' a "Luxury" You can live without.
I'm about 3900 feet from the end of the line of Time Warner cable...out in the sticks. $6000 to get the line run to my house...*sigh* No DSL available...30000 feet from the CO. No Wireless available...in a tight valley. And modem connections are AT BEST 24000. Yeah, I know...satellite...but ugh...higher cost and latency for crappy bandwidth...
Broadband's not a utility yet, sure there are many apps, services in the making that will launch once broadband's widely available and accepted (e.g. smart house), until then, however, broadband will remain an accessible luxury
