The Broadband Revolution Is Not Nigh

[Commentary] Is America on the cusp of a broadband revolution? You might get that impression from AT&T’s announcement that it is considering providing Internet service of up to 1 gigabit, or 1 billion bits, a second to 21 metropolitan areas including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The company’s plans sound impressive and ambitious. But if you happen to live in the cities AT&T is talking about, you might want to keep your Champagne on ice. Even if the company were ready to start laying new fiber-optic lines tomorrow, it would take many months of digging before it would be in a position to provide super-fast broadband connections.

A better way to understand what AT&T is doing is to look at it as a salvo in the company’s war of words with Google. Neither company will necessarily get around to expanding in all of the cities they’ve mentioned, however. Meanwhile, cable companies have been trying to consolidate control of the market.

Most Americans currently have few choices for high-capacity Internet service; nearly 60 percent of households buy broadband from their local cable companies, according to the Leichtman Research Group. It would be great if competition between Google Fiber and AT&T ended up providing Americans with more choices. But it would be naïve to believe that a broadband revolution is coming as long as a handful of cable companies dominate this important market.