Why Idaho has the slowest internet speeds

Should internet service be profitable? If so, how profitable? That's a question nobody seems to want to talk about. Instead, we just plod along, letting large telecom companies decide where they are going to offer service based on profitability rather than equity. That could change somewhat under FCC Chairman Genachowski's proposed Universal Service Fund (USF) reform. But all of the discussion these days is about rural areas. Urban areas area also lacking capacity and coverage, as you can see from a previous post about AT&T service dragging down the average throughput rate in Sacramento.

An article in yesterday's New York Times focused on the abysmally slow internet speeds in Idaho, where the average population density is 19 people per square mile.

It's no surprise that providers have no incentive to extend their networks in very rural areas to just a few homes. This is why the upcoming "Broadband Blindness" is exploring why, given the economic realities of investing in costly networks, we refuse to change how we pay for network infrastructure and leave investment decisions in the hands of public companies who run the risk of plummeting stock prices if their eyes stray from the bottom line.