Calls for 100Mbps broadband likely to go unheard... this year

[Commentary] The US broadband strategy is not to have a strategy. Not only will the market's invisible hand dig those trenches for us, and then lay down the necessary wiring, but it will ensure that speeds shoot ever upward, and US broadband is the envy of the world. Not only should the government butt out of the process, it shouldn't even set aspirational goals. How has this plan been working out? According to the Communications Workers of America and the Fiber-to-the-Home Council, not real well. This week, they called on Congress to pass a pair of resolutions that would set national goals, and come up with at least some plan for attaining speeds of 100Mbps by 2015. The resolutions in questions are H.Res.1292 and S.Res.191. Both call for the same thing: a baseline goal of universal, symmetrical 10Mbps access by 2010, increasing to 100Mbps in five more years. The resolution also asks relevant Congressional committees to talk with the President, and develop a plan by the end of 2009 to actually make the idea a reality. Much of the US remains far from these goals as 2008 winds down. The Communication Workers of America's 2008 study on broadband speeds shows, for instance, that Ars' home state of Illinois has tested median download speeds of 2.5Mbps this year, with an abysmal upload speed of 485Kbps. And numerous rural counties in the state get less than 700Kbps down. Half the states in the US are doing worse even than this, though Rhode Island takes the top spot at 6.7Mbps. As reports have indicated, this isn't good enough to keep us from falling behind the rest of the world.