yes, broadband access can make a person's life better. But it certainly isn't any sort of 'right', except to those dedicated to a total welfare state. Even bringing up the idea as though it warrants any serious consideration is a lame brained idea. Maybe one should consider the analogies proposed... water and power. First, we don't need any public utility for broadband, since we already have suppliers and networks in place. The broadband access is already expanding as fast as economically feasible, because the broadband suppliers like revenue streams. And remember, city gas, water, and power all require the user to pay for the hook-up and then pay for the monthly usage. No difference with broad band. And the city doesn't run water or gas lines all over the county to every possible customer. And even power utilities have a limit unless the potential user is willing to pay for the power line to his remote site. Now some cities are trying Wi-Fi access to their area. It's their choice to do so. Maybe it works. And maybe the probable connection loads will kill the service - or at least drag the connection speed down to almost zero. I do like hotels with a wireless zone, even tho you can't trust its security. But for main internet access, no Wi-Fi for me, even if it does work to some degree. On the Internet there are folks who are broadband users, and folks who are broadband thinkers. Sometimes the qualities of