Companies want no set Internet speeds in stimulus

Telecom companies vying for $7.2 billion in broadband funds included in the economic stimulus plan urged regulators not to mandate a super-fast Internet speed as a criterion for winning the money. Critics of this approach, though, say no government standards led to the United States lagging its industrialized peers in average broadband speed, viewed as a key driver of economic development. Comptel and the Wireless Communications Association say setting speeds too high will result in the cost of providing service eating into profits. Federal Communications Commission defines broadband speed at about 768 kilobits per second, slow by most standards, most experts agree. Conventional dial-up is about 56 kilobits per second, but cable companies offer high-speed Internet at typically a minimum of 1 megabit per second, and in most cases, more than that.