overall broadband deployment is over 80% of American households today

Uh, yeah right. Not even by the government's standard of broadband (which is 756kb down/256kb up) does the US have 80% broadband. 5Mbps is available at maybe a 20% market penetration, and the large majority of that is based on shared bandwith. Ie, if everyone in your apartment complex started streaming that 5Mbps at the same time, everyone would soon pretty much stall.

The idea that "five years from now we'll all have 10-50 Mbps links is really nice, but the reality is that people in major cities can get it and everyone who lives even 10km outside one is screwed, simply because the cable companies and the telcoms refuse to put pipe down to outlying areas.

ATT's Uverse and their "Fiber to the curb" bullshit is exactly that, bullshit. When I moved to my house in the boonies in 2007, AT&T told me that I'd have fiber to my curb by year's end. It's now 2009 and when I called them a few months ago, they said it would probably never happen. Their idea of Fiber to the curb is where your curb < 50 yards away from where their fiber currently is. Otherwise, you're just shit out of luck.

Whether or not people that have actual broadband available (the 10mbps+ connections) will make up enough users for them to be financially solvable remains to be seen. (ignoring every other problem they have to face.)

I havent seen that data yet, but my guess would definetly be broadband is signing up customers faster than the consoles are selling.

Please. The majority of people in the US are CLAMORING for broadband, only to be told by the cable co's and telcoms to go fuck themselves, because they live too far away. You know which areas are "growing?" The people in inner cities who keep upgrading from the top tier connections to the newer top tier connection. Sure, FIOS has 2 million customers. The large majority of those came from people who already had 10Mbps cable. Once Verizon (I think?) rolls out the 150Mbps line, who will get those connections? The people who already have FIOS and want to/can afford it.

Not to mention that Obama is going to sink $8 billion into upgrading america's broadband

Uh, you're aware what his plans for "broadband" are, right? Once the analog spectrum is sold, he wants 25% of it to remain available for free wi-fi coverage across the US. That's going to be a 512kb down/64kb up connection, most likely, though some reports say it might go as high as 756/256. That will probably only be in the big cities though.
None of it will be usable for this project.

If this service has a good launch, I can also see it enticing more people to consider high speed internet, and I imagine they are partnering with the telcos to encourage exactly that.

The telcos don't give a flying fuck. There is no problem with DEMAND for high speed internet. There is a problem with SUPPLY. And the telcos have no intention of doing anything about the supply problem, because it's not economically feasible for them to do so. (or so they claim anyways.)

AT&T isn't going to say "Holy shit, Steve Perlman has some servers that are streaming the Sims 3, and people want to play it. Let's roll out fiber to the curb so everyone can sign up for Steve's plan!"

Creston

This comment was edited on Mar 25, 2009, 00:23.