Retiring Guy's Digest: Cajun Broadband b/w OECD Statistics

Louisiana city blazes high-speed Web trail. (USA Today, 2/1/2012)

Excerpt: Once a broadband leader, the USA has slipped to 15th in a poll by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that ranks countries according to the percentage of households and businesses using broadband, falling behind Finland, France, Canada and other countries. The USA's "duopoly problem" — 96% of households have access to two or fewer broadband service providers — has contributed to the slide in ranking, according to the Federal Communications Commission. In its National Broadband Plan, the FCC urges Congress to clarify federal rules allowing state and local governments to provide broadband service.

Local governments are increasingly trying to bring broadband service to rural stretches where private providers don't operate but they are met with stiff resistance from the companies, Mitchell says. "These companies fundamentally aren't built for acting in a competitive environment," he says.

"They're built as monopolies. They don't know how to operate any other way."

The article also enumerates the three primary ways by which telecommunications companies fight projects like LUS Fiber.