American ISPs have convinced us that Internet access is
expensive—getting speeds of 100Mbps will set most people back by more
than $100 a month, assuming the service is even available. Where I live
in Chicago, Comcast's 105Mbps service goes for a whopping $199.95
("premium installation" and cable modem not included). Which is why it
was so refreshing to see the scrappy California ISP Sonic.net this week
roll out its new 1Gbps, fiber-to-the-home service… for $69.99 a month.

Sonic.net has been around since 1994, selling DSL service in
California, but it has recently expanded into fiber; the company has
even secured the contract to manage Google's own 1Gbps fiber network that will connect 800+ faculty homes at Stanford University.

Sonic.net's new approach to broadband involves stringing its own
fiber lines to homes and offering bargain-basement pricing; indeed, the
new 1Gbps offering is the same price as the company's earlier bonded
40Mbps DSL offering (in which two phones lines each provide 20Mbps of
bandwidth to a home). The price even includes home phone service.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/1gbps-fiber-for-70in-america-yup.ars

South Korea's Seoul To Blanket The City With Free Wi-Fi

South Korea's capital city is already the best connected in the world, so it's not surprising that the local government has announced a $44 million project to bring free Wi-Fi Internet access to every outdoor space and street corner city-wide. Surprising, no. But jealousy-inducing? Oh my, yes.

All buses, taxis, and subway trains will be covered, too. Korea Telecom (KT) already had Seoul's subway lines covered with WiBro, its nationwide commercial wireless broadband service.

Was that good enough? Not in Seoul.

KT
had rolled out that leg of its service back in 2004 and put it into
service in 2007. Before North American telecoms got serious about 3G,
before much smaller municipal Wi-Fi projects stateside collapsed under
their own weight, South Koreans were already living the IEEE 802.16e
mobile WiMAX dream.

South Korea's wireless penetration rates and download speeds make most of the U.S.'s cabled
broadband look like an anachronistic joke. (Like when your grandmother
tells a long, meandering story that's only funny because she's so old
and adorable.)

Seoul is already the long-reigning hotspot champ. You can already get wireless almost everywhere. Their version of the last mile problem
is getting Internet signal outside. Actually, Seoul's problem (such as
it is) illustrates both the genius and the frustrations of municipal
wireless plans worldwide.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1760834/the-wi-rich-get-wi-richer-south-koreas-seoul-to-add-free-municipal-wi-fi?partner=gnews

Citigroup Questions Whether US Spectrum Shortage Exists

Terahertz wireless chip could deliver 30Gbps of bandwidth, stream uncompressed 4K video

Wireless regulation is not about Free Market vs. Big Government (an economic perspective)

Results

It's one thing to point to these flaws in the current structure of
the wireless industry, but what is the actual harm being done? In the
beginning of this article I pointed out that market failures would lead
to inefficient allocation of resources, or at the very least less
efficient than what they should be.

Based on the specific market failures I outlined above we would expect to see the following:

• Less innovation in wireless broadband and service packages due to the limited competition among suppliers

Two wireless industry mainstays that I think are the clearest
examples of an anticompetitive market are separate data buckets for
different devices on already capped plans and exorbitantly high pricing
on text messages relative to other data. Both of these "services" are
essentially just extra charges for the carrier to release an arbitrary
restriction on something that they've already sold you once. A
competitive carrier that was more interested in luring customers than
upsetting existing revenue streams could go a long ways by upsetting any
one of these standard practices. Their continued presence in all four
big carriers' service plans says a lot about the level of
competitiveness in the industry.

• Under supply of services and devices, and at higher prices for customers due to barriers to switching providers

We're all familiar with the limited availability of specific devices
on individual carriers. Five years after the iPhone launched, you still
can't get one on contract on T-Mobile. Does anyone think that this has
anything to do with Apple not wanting to sell phones to T-Mobile
customers? Additionally, consider the gradual repeal across Verizon,
AT&T, T-Mobile of unlimited data plans.
As customers become more locked in, carriers can extract higher and
higher prices for the same services. Lastly, witness the increasingly
long delays for OTA software updates. While device makers bear some of
the blame here, the carriers are increasingly a factor as well. With
customers already locked in for 2 years with a new device, the carrier
has little to no incentive to spend additional money pushing updates to
their phone.

• Reduced profits to device makers and under supply of devices due to the oligopsony power of the carriers

This is difficult to prove without specific data on device makers
profit levels. However, I think that it is telling that both Google and
Microsoft avoiding the wireless industry
cut wireless broadband from both of their most recent tablet
announcements. So while we may not see an under supply of tablet
devices, we are likely to see an under supply of tablet devices with
mobile broadband capability.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/19/3170718/wireless-regulation-is-not-about-free-market-vs-big-government-an

sooner or later the Verge will win Pulitzer price if they keep at it...or ..maybe ATT hitman will kill them first.