Thanks to Timothy Finnerty for sending me an interesting article today – Loss of Copper Infrastructure Threatens Small Business Broadband. The gist of the article is that innovators are finding ways to get better broadband speeds out of copper – but the issue now is that telecom providers are replacing copper with fiber.

Here’s a quote from Carl Grivner, president of XO Communications in the article:

“Companies like mine deploy Ethernet over Copper, delivering speeds up to 45 Mbps where we have access to this vital–and existing–infrastructure. We will get even faster, but that innovation is threatened by existing rules allowing large telecom providers to remove copper wiring – a communications resource originally subsidized by ratepayers – without regard to potential public benefits.”

It really highlights the frustration of the market these days. Do we shoot for the moon or keep our feet on the ground?