When Google deploys a fiber-to-the-home network in Kansas City, Kan. (and later in Kansas City, Missouri) its success for the project will not be measured in dollars but in users. And in promoting this view of broadband Google shows a keen understanding of how broadband has the potential to disrupt everything — the value isn’t in delivering broadband — it’s in delivering services over broadband.
That doesn’t mean that broadband isn’t valuable, but it’s also not the highest value — much like electricity is valuable, but it’s the air conditioning or refrigeration that it enables that people spend more money on. Which runs somewhat counter to the argument put forth by ISPs, especially those keen to meter broadband — that the value is in the access itself. Instead of viewing broadband as a gateway to the web, and trying to capitalize on that by offering faster speeds that people will eventually pay more for as Verizon is doing with FiOS, many ISPs view broadband as something that’s valuable in and of itself– and as such it might make sense to charge people by the byte.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Is broadband the gateway drug for the web or the drug itself? — Broadband News and Analysis
Author:Stacey Higginbotham
