AT&T starts capping broadband

[Martinus]

I will probably get 2.0 when the Polish mobile companies start offering it with the mobile plan (they only offer 1.0 now and you can get 2.0 in iSpots and electronic equipment chains like Saturn or Media Markt). My current 1.0 is wifi only so if I am going to upgrade, I will do it only for the 3G version, and getting a 3G version without a mobile plan is too expensive.

[Neil]

I can't believe these freaking speeds you Euros are getting.  POS RCN gave me a whopping 7 something with the ethernet.   

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

[Cecil]

I can't believe these freaking speeds you Euros are getting.  POS RCN gave me a whopping 7 something with the ethernet.   

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

Infrastructure investments?

Though a lot of/most of the broadband net here in the cold north was built by private companies and not the state.

[Pat]

I can't believe these freaking speeds you Euros are getting.  POS RCN gave me a whopping 7 something with the ethernet.   

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

Yup exactly. We get good, cheap broadband largely because of state subsidies in the required infrastructure.

[Cecil]

I can't believe these freaking speeds you Euros are getting.  POS RCN gave me a whopping 7 something with the ethernet.   

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

Yup exactly. We get good, cheap broadband largely because of state subsidies in the required infrastructure.

How large was the overall subsidies when the net was layed?

[Pat]

Looked it up. Around 2000 (relevant proposition prop.
1999/2000:86) there were 1900 million SEK assigned for networks to be built connecting the main communities in all communes (290 communes in Sweden) and 1200 million for so-called access nets (presumably the nets to the consumers?). This was cheaper than expected, the original budget was 1,9 billion for commune-connecting nets and 3,2 billion for access nets. In today's exchange rate 1 billion sek = 161 million usd (though the usd was worth more at the time, if it matters). Sweden is the size of California and has 9 m. people.

(Source in Swedish: http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:20829, p. 50)

In a 2006 OECD comparison Sweden had the cheapest entry-level broadband.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6900697.stm)

[derspiess]

I can't believe these freaking speeds you Euros are getting.  POS RCN gave me a whopping 7 something with the ethernet.  

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

Like getting people to buy stuff they don't want?

[Neil]

I can't believe these freaking speeds you Euros are getting.  POS RCN gave me a whopping 7 something with the ethernet.   

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

Like getting people to buy stuff they don't want?

People seem to want the internet, oddly enough.

[grumbler]

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

Like getting people to buy stuff they don't want?

Actually, it does that very well, indeed.  It's called "advertising." 

[DGuller]

I can't believe these freaking speeds you Euros are getting.  POS RCN gave me a whopping 7 something with the ethernet.   

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

Like getting people to buy stuff they don't want?

More like getting people to invest in non-excludable infrastructure.

[Habbaku]

I can't believe these freaking speeds you Euros are getting.  POS RCN gave me a whopping 7 something with the ethernet.   

There are some things that the free market doesn't do very well.

Like getting people to buy stuff they don't want?

More like getting people to invest in non-excludable infrastructure.

Why bother when the government has proven it will do so time and again?

[DGuller]

It's not at all wrong for the government to invest in non-excludable infrastructure, due to the positive externalities involved.  Non-exludable infrastructure is one of the basic market failures, on their own companies would under-invest in infrastructure, because they don't capture all the benefits from it.