Walt Mossberg Says “We suck at broadband!”

You really need to see this. It’s Walt giving a presentation outlining trends in TV viewing on PCs vs home theater and the sorry state of the broadband reality in North America. I don’t always agree with Walt, but he has this completely nailed. He very lucid and well spoken on the matter. He also highlights AppleTV & Tivo as well as the pending (60 days) availability of a 3G iPhone.

Further, he highlights Amazon’s Unboxed service that supports downloading programs directly to a broadband connected Tivo. Apparently we like this a lot. I get an email from Amazon every time a download is initiated, and I get a lot of these when I’m out of town. My wife downloads 3-4 movies at a time, then watches them when she likes over the next few days. It’s getting so much action that I may cancel my Netflix subscription.

On the broadband front he points out the 768 kbps is not legally allowed to be called broadband in some countries. Recall out current FCC definition of broadband is a mere 128 kbps.

Also this week, Comcast rolled out a 50/5 Mbps broadband offering in Minneapolis and St Paul MN. Prices start at a whopping $150/mo. The 5 Mbps upload rate is especially interesting. I wonder if people will actually get this level of service? It’d be good to hear from a Comcast customer in the area.

On the Wimax front Sprint’s much anticipated Xohm service has been delayed “at least a couple of months” due to the inability to provision a sufficient backhaul network to support the service.

Of course there’s nothing even remotely comparable available in Houston, not at any price.