Broadband

History of Broadband: Telephone, Cable, and Beyond

The history of broadband begins with the narrow-band Internet. Many people argue that the narrow-band Internet flourished as a result of minimal regulation, pointing to the explosion of small, private service providers in the 1980s. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) argues to the contrary, pointing out that telephone lines have always been highly regulated. For example, the 1996 Telecommunications Act has mandated competition among phone providers. This resulted in the creation of “incumbent local exchange carriers” (ILECs) such as Bell Atlantic, and “competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) such as Covad.

By contrast, cable television has been subject to little or no regulation. During the 1980s, while telephone companies worked to deploy “proto-broadband” technologies such as ISDN, cable companies focused their efforts on wiring American homes for television. Later, they began improving their facilities with two-way lines capable of throughput speeds of 30mbps (megabytes per second) downstream—significantly faster than the FCC's requirement for broadband delivery. (“Downstream” refers to the data coming into the user's computer from the Internet; material that the user uploads to the Internet goes “upstream.”)

Today, the cable modem is the most popular form of broadband, and an option for as many as 80 percent of U.S. homes. The massive popularity of cable-based Internet use has prompted many to question earlier decisions to leave that industry unregulated. Proponents of open access argue that cable companies should abide by the same “common carrier” restrictions as telephone companies, and allow multiple ISPs on their systems; as it stands, many cable companies give users a choice of only one provider.

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