| Apples and oranges: all "megabits" are not equal The fact that your home connection is rated at "10 megabits per second" by a carrier does not mean that you can stream 10 megabits of data, continuously, 24x7. More likely, it means that the maximum raw data rate at which the modem can "train up" is 10 Mbps. This is a bit like a used car salesman telling you that a car is a "120 MPH car" because that's the largest number on the speedometer.
The fact is that backbone bandwidth still costs quite a lot all over. In the US, the best wholesale price that one can get for non-oversold backbone bandwidth is about $15 per Mbps. (Yes, Cogent advertises $3 per Mbps, but it oversells.) And that is only at major urban hubs and does not include "middle mile" transport to your ISP's hub or last mile transport to your home or office.
It is true that US bandwidth prices are inflated by the excessive cost of "middle mile" transport, and this is something that must be fixed by Congress. (Congress needs to mandate the opening of fiber routes to the areas through which they pass, and also to eliminate price gouging on "special access" -- AKA wholesale -- connections.) But nowhere in the world is the cost of actual, committed backbone bandwidth to the consumer under $15 per Mbps unless there is a government subsidy. |
