This is new. I read something on CNN and thought it was worthy enough to talk about it here, which I have never written an editorial on something like this in the media before.

 Read the CNN article here: First nation makes broadband access a legal right

I thought this was pretty cool. I immediately posted to Facebook and Twitter about this, but felt that I could go into detail about my thoughts.

We've always been in this digital age, and dial-up just doesn't cut it anymore. In fact, some places don't even offer it. Instead, internet providers charge the next up price for broadband, what they call "high speed internet". This used to be true when 56k was around, because over 700k is a huge step up. But it just doesn't cut it anymore. Now days, in order to do anything other than grab an email (unless you're me with too much spam) or surf a couple websites, even 1.5mbps won't cut it. At least 3mbps is needed, but the ideal would be 7mbps to 20mbps

-very big grin- 

So here's the scoop. I 'm not sure why this hasn't been done, or put into motion yet.

 I believe that the United States should partner and cooperate (two keywords there) with local internet providers to set a low cost high speed broadband to be available to everyone. The speeds would be 3mbps (1.5mbps could be available at an even lower cost). The price for the single speed will be the same everywhere in the nation. This could be paid monthly, and since it's one price, the contract could remain open (unbinding) and could transfer anywhere in the nation. 

In order to offset the cost to the companies, the United States could offer a tax-break, or a refund, to the companies. This could be something like (base + (number of users * "commission")), perhaps with a larger tax-break (two-tier?) for families or individuals that qualify for things like general assistance.

Now of course there are fears that this would upset the economy. I don't think it would. It would actually create a huge, practically guaranteed market, almost like a sustaining flow from consumer to provider. It will always be there, and the tax breaks will always be there, and there is a huge number of people that would use this service.

This also creates an opportunity for providers and communications corporations to take their focus off the lower broadband spectrum and focus their bigger resources on the high speeds, infrastructure and the development of technologies. For instance, take Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), and how they want to create entire towns with very high speed broadband internet available to all. This could easily be done once companies pump more resources into their expansion and infrastructure. Eventually, the nation will be networked together, and the coming of now popular "cloud computing" will be even more accessible Heck, we've seen this before, where technologies begin a faster development and production, which pumps the economy and creates more jobs across the board. Take that economy!

So, what do ya say?