10Mbps Broadband for Home Arrives

Most DSL and cable modem connections promise between 1Mbps and 3Mbps, but Charter Communications is upping the ante with 10Mbps service (for downloads only; uploads are still limited to 1Mbps). The service (which still isn't mentioned on Charter's web site) runs about $60 after tax during the current promotion. After six months it rises to about $85 a month.

I find Phil Harvey's post on this subject a little amusing. He does a little calculation to note that on a price-per-megabit, per-month basis, prices have fallen from $42 in 2003 to $6 today. "How do service providers even hope to make money on bandwidth when prices are falling that fast?"

Easy: Because the prices they pay for bandwidth have been falling just as fast. ISPs are simply reselling that bandwidth to you and me.

So how do ISPs make money? The answer is right there in Harvey's post: The price he's paying per month today is virtually the same as he paid in 2003. If he sticks with Charter until the end of the promotion, he'll be paying more than ever. Yet it's human nature to break it down in bandwidth terms, because that's how we pay for electricity, phone service, and even water. But with an "always on" connection like a cable modem, we're really paying by the month, and the last time I checked those aren't getting any longer. (No offense to you, Phil. I do exactly the same thing to rationalize my tech purchases!)

Note: If you can't get 10Mbps cable you might look at Verizon's fiber-optic FiOS broadband, which offers 15Mbps (maximum) downloads for $45 a month and a whopping 30Mbps for $180 a month. Verizon doesn't offer FiOS where I live, but everyone I know who has it has raved about the service.

Got ultra-high-speed networking? Post a comment and let us all know how it's going (and how close to those "theoretical maximum" speeds you're actually getting)!

http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/null/4001;_ylt=Arvp_GnUnWp2ZlseIk1VVAMSLpA5