Reshaping the Broadband Market

The incoming administration has made clear their intentions to put the U.S. back in the top 10 for broadband penetration. While the U.S. ranks number one in terms of the number of subscriptions, it comes in at number 15 behind France and Germany in terms of penetration per 100 inhabitants. In that regard, the legislative activities in Washington are setting the stage for another move in the chess game between the cable operators and the Telcos. The cable operators have been offering relatively higher broadband download speeds than the Telcos who thus far have relied on their ADSL infrastructure for broadband offerings. The MSOs would like the minimum download speed for broadband connectivity to be set at 5Mbps which would automatically disqualify the bulk of DSL connections which average at 2Mbps or less as broadband connections. It will be interesting to follow this tussle as the outcome bears significant implications for network infrastructure providers who could really use some good news heading into 09.