Luck and the Last Mile Bella Vista AR

Posted by : Nelson King

It's what consumers want--high speed and always-on access to the Internet. At least it now has a generally accepted name: broadband. Broadband services cover just about any form of technology that can deliver interactive Internet content, up to and including streaming multimedia such as movies. Broadband is a big deal because it will shape the future of computing and communications. Even so, for the home owner or business, getting broadband service continues to be a matter of luck, like a game of chance that only some can play.

Take a dart and throw it at a map of the United States. If it sticks in a big metropolitan area (such as New York or Los Angeles) the chances of getting broadband are good. If the dart lands in a secondary metropolitan area (such as Denver or Memphis), there may be broadband service but maybe not. Hit a regional city or a rural area, and chances of broadband are very poor, or very expensive. Geography is important, but it's not the whole game. For any particular household or business, the transmission of broadband service such as cable TV or the telephone line may or may not work technically. A lot also depends on who provides the service. Some cable or phone companies are successful at providing broadband; others are not. While broadband coverage is now being distributed across the country, getting it from the main lines (backbones) down the last mile to homes and businesses is fraught with technical, polit...

Click here to read the rest of this article from Computer User