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October 7, 2014 | Comments (5)
We Americans are getting addicted to our high-speed broadband connections. Unfortunately, they are often slower and more expensive than the Internet hook-ups you can grab in many other developed nations.
For example, my brother pays $40 a month for his 100-megabit broadband connection in Karlstad, Sweden. He can take his pick from 19 different service providers, all using a common last-mile infrastructure and competing on price and features. For $70 a month, he could upgrade to a full gigabit.
Me, I’m stuck paying $83 a month for a 50-megabit connection. Moreover, my upload connection rarely goes past half the speed Verizon (nyse: vz) promised. So I’m paying more and getting less, and if I wanted Verizon’s fastest available FiOS connection, I’d be paying $300 a month (plus taxes!) for half a gigabit.
It’s pretty clear that the Swedish model delivers more value and lower prices than the American way. And it’s all made possible by a robust collection of municipal networks.
So why isn’t America following the municipal path to high-speed bliss?
… it’s complicated
Here’s what happened in Sweden, in a nutshell.
As the 1990s drew to a close and the Internet started to become a big deal, Swedish consumers and businesses started thirsting for faster and more reliable connections. An industry emerged to serve this unmet need, much like anywhere else.
But there was a problem. Formerly government-owned telecom giant Telia had already installed a nationwide fiber-optic network and was unwilling to share network access with other operators. One by one, county and municipality leaders started drawing up their own plans for local high-speed networking — and reaching out to one another to connect the separate networks into a nationwide loop.
