Once you divide the typical "broadband" cable or DSL bandwidth between two or three family members who use the Internet at the same time, what have you got? That's right, you're left with not much more per person than a dial-up single 56K line. Certainly not the order of magnitude faster service we're being pitched.

France Telecom has the guts to tag their 1024 down/256 up ADSL service as "very high throughput" (très haut débit my ass), while they claim you have to buy a fix IP to host a server (ever heard of dynamic DNS?) When companies (here, doubling as a state-backed public service) spout such big lies with a straight face, no wonder their whole industry is crashing into bankruptcy (except French tax payers will of course have to bail out FT, suckers that we are).

09/23/02 update: The Economist: Telecom troubles.