broad prices for narrow broadband

I recieved this email from freepress.net, and i have to say that I never realized how we're losing out when it comes to broadband service. Not only do we pay nearly $600 bucks a year for high speed internet, it turns out that it isn't really that fast...our service is only a tenth of the speed that broadband users have in Tokyo...

Dear xxxxx:
Internet access is becoming a basic public
necessity — just like water, gas or electricity. But far too many New
Yorkers
are finding themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide,
priced out by
high monthly fees or stranded by corporations that have deemed
their
neighborhoods unprofitable.

It's time to bring New York City into the 21st century and
connect every New Yorker to the Internet. Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston
are doing it — so should New York City.
Urge city leaders to provide low-cost, high-speed Internet access for
every New Yorker by 2007.

Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner charge working families
around $600 a year for a connection that
is 10 times slower than broadband
in Tokyo. Children across the world have
better and faster Internet access
than kids in Brooklyn. New York City schools
are ranked 41st in the country
in the use of computers in education.

The city government has failed to embrace the possibilities
of new information
technology. Yet advances in wireless technology could
give every New Yorker
access to broadband for less than $10 a
month.

Call on Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Public Advocate Betsy
Gotbaum, and members of the City Council to
deliver universal, affordable
broadband Internet access for every New Yorker by
Jan. 1, 2007.
Sign the petition now.

[FREEPRESS.NET]