It’s about time. The US has been the “slow child” of DSL-braodband roll-out. Here are the top 20 countries worldwide of DSL penetration (Ars Technica, as of June last year):
  * South Korea (95%)
  * Singapore (88%)
  * Netherlands (85%)
  * Denmark (82%)
  * Taiwan (81%)
  * Hong Kong (81%)
  * Israel (77%)
  * Switzerland (76%)
  * Canada (76%)
  * Norway (75%)
  * Australia (72%)
  * Finland (69%)
  * France (68%)
  * United Kingdom (67%)
  * United Arab Emirates (65%)
  * Japan (64%)
  * Sweden (63%)
  * Estonia (62%)
  * Belgium (62%)
  * USA (60%)

As well, because the breakup of MaBell into the seven BabyBells was done to preserve telecoms concentrations in each of the regional companies created ... during the Reagan administration in 1984 (who else?). In these regional districts there is little effective competition in the subscriber-line market. Which has allowed the Baby-Bell incumbents to cherry-pick markets, that is, serve dense urban markets and leave rural markets to employ slower dial-up modems.

Until now, with this alternative means of transmission means. That is, it depends upon who gets the bandwidth segments and if real competition amongst the ISPs will be allowed.

And DSL is only one market in which “competition” is a well-recognized fallacy. Market concentration brings nice juicy profits, which is why BigBusiness spends BigBucks in Congress to obtain them.

Is this what we thought Free Market Competition was all about? Wakey, wakey ...