Paul Krugmen/ The French Connections

Excerpt: America's Internet flourished in the dial-up era because federal regulators didn't let that happen - they forced local phone companies to act as common carriers, allowing competing service providers to use their lines. Clinton administration officials, including Al Gore and Reed Hundt, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, tried to ensure that this open competition would continue - but the telecommunications giants sabotaged their efforts, while The Wall Street Journal's editorial page ridiculed them as people with the minds of French bureaucrats.

And when the Bush administration put Michael Powell in charge of the F.C.C., the digital robber barons were basically set free to do whatever they liked. As a result, there's little competition in U.S. broadband - if you're lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there's nowhere else to go.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072407H.shtml

is what caused this travesty.

:kick:

Millions upon millions were provided to the teleco's to bring the FAST internet to each and every house. But they hemmed and hawed about it and pocketed the money instead, allowing them record profits while doing NOTHING that they were suppose do be doing? Now they are forbidding certain cities from providing their own internet access. Competition brings out the BEST? This is collusion at its BEST!

Sounds like Socialism to me!

:sarcasm: