Indeed, although the big phone companies have signed up DSL customers at record pace in recent months, cable Internet figures in the United States continue to outstrip them. The top DSL providers had a total of about 5.5 million subscribers at the close of the third quarter of 2002, compared with more than 10.1 million cable modem subscribers, according to the Leichtman Research Group. Last year, the phone companies' arguments helped spark one of Washington's most expensive lobbying battles in recent memory. A bill freeing the Baby Bells' hands passed the House of Representatives by a substantial margin, but later hit roadblocks in the Senate, and the policy battle switched to the FCC.

How much competition is enough?The FCC has two woman up funny quote iphone case pending rulings that will affect the broadband market in subtle but potentially powerful ways, One, dubbed the Triennial Review, is a sweeping look at a long list of telecommunications competition regulations, Among those are decisions on exactly which parts of their networks the big local phone companies have to "unbundle," or let smaller companies use individually at wholesale rates in order to create their own DSL services from scratch, Previous decisions have successively cut the price that companies such as Covad have had to pay to gain access to phone company lines, "Line sharing," a policy that allowed companies to send their DSL signals on a customer's first phone line, instead of installing a second phone line, dropped Covad's California monthly payments to the local phone companies from close to $26 per customer line to about $6 a line, for example, They and others are worried that policy will be overturned..

"Bottom line, there's no argument that can be made that consumers would be better off with fewer broadband choices," said Jason Oxman, assistant general counsel for Covad, one of the few remaining independent DSL companies. "Consumers clearly have benefited from an explosion in broadband services.". Policy-makers and some technology companies aren't convinced that the "explosion" in the United States has been much more than a firecracker, however, even with 15 million people now using high-speed Net services. Critics point to other countries such as South Korea, where government officials recently said that 10 million high-speed lines were in service, encompassing more than a fifth of the country's 21 million people.

In that country and others, network companies are investing billions or trillions of dollars for higher-speed connections than are typically seen in the United States, as well, Korean officials said that by 2005, 13 million South Koreans would subscribe to broadband services that averaged 20mbps, or 10 to 20 woman up funny quote iphone case times faster than the average U.S, connection, Although drafts of FCC proposals have been floating through telecommunications policy circles in recent weeks, insiders say it's unclear where the commissioners will ultimately come down on the issue, Any decision is likely to split the five-member body, many predict..

At a closely watched speech in Washington in December, Commissioner Kevin Martin gave a rhetorical tip of the hat to a Verizon Communications executive, saying he agreed with much of that company's policy proposals. The big local phone companies should be able to keep exclusive or near-exclusive access to new infrastructure such as superfast fiber to the home connections, while the old regulations should continue to be looked at skeptically, Martin said. "Companies will not invest in advanced services until we ensure that the governing regulations will not deprive companies of the ability to make a return on their investment," Martin told the crowd of telecommunications policy wonks. His comments, although not necessarily reflective of the remaining four FCC commissioners, sparked almost immediate damage control response from local phone company rivals.