Is There Broadband Competition?

With Sprint pulling out from its partnership with LightSquared, it may signal the ultimate end of a possible competitor in the wireless and broadband arena.  With the release of Apple's iPad today, the rise of OTT distribution platforms, and the consumer desire to be mobile and untethered, the choice of wireless and wired providers remains small.

We have the wireless companies, most trying to sell us usage plans that cause us to spend more for connectivity as our consumption rises.  And there are the cable operators, offering wired broadband access coupled with WIFI to authenticated consumers in the communities they serve.  But who else can we turn to for connectivity.  It seems the FCC should be doing more to encourage more competitiveness in what is becoming a vital communication highway.  But by pushing aside LightSquared and recently Dish network's wireless plans, it seems that the FCC does not want competition.

Will broadcast networks give up their portion of the airwaves for wireless or will GPS?  Are there other solutions that will enable free flow of streams with bandwidth constraints?  Ultimately our broadband and wireless devices will not work properly if we have a bottleneck in the flow.