By now you’ve probably read the comments from Time Warner Cable (
TWC) CTO Irene Esteves explaining that
her company doesn’t plan to build out fiber to the home because there’s no evidence that American consumers actually want super-fast networks. While a lot of people expressed surprise in response to this attitude, it’s actually been a common refrain from the cable industry and its defenders for quite some time now — let’s recall that National Cable & Telecommunications Association CEO Michael Powell
recently described achieving gigabit speeds as an “
irrelevant exercise in bragging rights.” That this attitude isn’t just consigned to one company but is apparently held by the entire industry indicates that the market for home broadband in the United States is horrendously uncompetitive and is in desperate need of a shakeup.
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